


J.B.B.

by MaladaptiveNinjaReturns



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Bucky Barnes & Shuri Friendship, Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, Bucky Barnes Recovering, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Oral Sex, Protective Bucky Barnes, References to Depression, Sex, Smut, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 23:57:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 37,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17069651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaladaptiveNinjaReturns/pseuds/MaladaptiveNinjaReturns
Summary: Your mundane, everyday life is hindered in a bad way by a Journal you find. At least that's what you think.





	1. Chapter 1

“How can you love someone like that?”

You looked at your recently made friend, Gina, from work, thinking whether to invest your time in all the possibly great explanations or to stick to the shorter version of it.

“Because loving is far easier to deal with than hate. Hate makes you feel bad.”

You scrunched your nose as both of you walked past the poster of the Frankenstein remake as Gina rolled her eyes at you.

“You do know that’s not true, right? Commitment sucks babe. It sucks real hard.”

You giggled as her curls bounced so gracefully even as she moved her head in colourful disgust.

“I don’t know, man. I’ve never really found anyone ‘relationship-worthy’ yet.”

“Really?” She sounded surprised, “How many people have you dated?”

You shrugged your shoulders and raised your hands in approximate gestures, “uhh…two.”

Gina stopped in the middle of the street and looked at you, her head tilted in question.

“Girl, what is a beautiful woman like you doing in your free time if not making out with someone?”

“Hanging out with a crazy friend,” you responded nonchalantly, breaking into a smile on seeing Gina’s surprise turn into her signature smug face.

“Alright you cocky angel. Looks like I’ll have to play your wingwoman. I’ll be taking details on Monday. Bye babe.”

You waved as she crossed the road and skipped towards her home while you walked straight ahead.

You turned towards your street, bumping into a wall. “Oof!” Or so you thought.

You tried to find a footing as your legs retrieved from the huge structure standing right in the middle of the sidewalk. And of course, you failed miserably, landing on the hard tiles with a sad groan while your groceries spilled everywhere.

“Apologies, ma'am.”

A man at least six feet tall, with a built that could put all Greek Gods to shame, kneeled before you, bringing forward his right hand for you to sit up and began collecting the scattered plums and putting into your paper bag quickly. You were not able to get a good look at his face covered under a cap. But you did not miss his sharp jaw or his long brown hair playing near his neck. You would’ve never stopped looking at him had he not turned his clear ocean eyes back at you.

“Sorry, I uhh didn’t see where I was going,” you apologised, too embarrased to look at him, and moved towards the bread loaf lying beside you. You picked up the loaf to find what looked like a journal. It didn’t have anything written over it, just tiny initials on the botom corner and inside of the cover page- J.B.B.

You turned around to find your groceries neatly standing in the paper bag with no sign of the human form of the Alps.

You turned  _ again  _ to look around the corner. No one. No sign of even the shadow of a man. Just a lingering scent of his, letting you know that you hadn’t dreamt it. Putting the journal in your bag with the thought of returning it to its owner, you started walking to your destination, with a really interesting incident to overthink about for the day.

Your neighborhood didn’t have much to speak about except the different hues of white on every apartment and an abandoned building right opposite the one you had begun calling home.

The rent was cheap, thanks to the abandoned heap of bricks in front of your apartment-that for some people was too much to look at- and the facilities were good. You’d found a job of an assistant manager at a local bookshop that was, for you, unusually large and filled with content you’d never even heard about. Gina worked in the maintenance section for the 'limited copies’ and 'local history’ area and your curiosity had been the reason you two had met and bonded over your love for all the pages that smelled old and dusty.

Your apartment was small- the door taking you straight into the hallway with a couch and TV that was at one foot distance from the kitchen, that stood opposite your bedroom- but you’d made it pretty cozy for yourself.

You went straight into your routine once you were home. Keeping your belongings on 'the chair’ in the bedroom, you opened the bathroom door while putting on a playlist according to your mood- randomizing when you felt daring- and came out of your clothes to get under the shower. Today the mood list was sensual and the water pressure was strong. You liked it cold, sometimes lukewarm when the cold European winter made you miss home. The shower would be followed by making dinner and snacks- the latter being the supper for cats and kittens that would visit you or the ones that had inhabited the building opposite yours. Their company was the best. They loved anything and everything you brought for them and they ate it till there was nothing left or they experienced food coma. You wanted to keep a cat but your apartment was too small-according to you- and you’d rather they have their freedom than be cooped up in a small space for the entirety of their life.

You picked up the basket full of mildly roasted bread smothered in butter and all the Tupperware containing milk and your dinner along with a small mat and made your way to your little friends.

“Aah! No wonder they’ve been crying so loudly. They must have smelled the delicious bread.”

“I still don’t know how they do that Mr Kline. It’s like an inbuilt clock that tells them exactly when I’m home.”

“They do, actually. But for them it’s less of a biological clock and more of a 'Y/N has come home-let’s party’ clock upon hearing your arrival.”

Mr. Kline was the handy serviceman of the building. Even though he was a reputed professor of world history at the local college, he preferred to be simply known as the building’s caretaker. You hadn’t understood why a man as wise as him would chose to work for a building he practically owned with his husband and not be standing in a lecture hall somewhere talking about all the knowledge he had gathered in half a century. His well-kept golden brown hair and his soft personality towards the people he liked made him look younger than he was, never giving away the sass and the wisdom that was kept at the edge of his tongue for the ones who thought they knew it all. He’d been the one to recommend you for the job at the library and you made sure to thank him this wonderful man with whatever little unpopular knowledge you could share with him about your birthplace.

You shared a greeting with him as you left the building and crossed the street towards the unkept one.

The building, like any other in this town, was quite sturdy. It still had wallpapers over the corridors and stairs from the previous owners. Almost everything was intact- the stairs, the apartment doors, nearly all the windows, even some punk rock poster wall in one apartment. Some walls had been grafitti-ed on with memes and uplifting messages, others had weird symbols drawn on them. Some walls had been taken down on various floors for whatever had been the plans for this place before they were dropped. So, yeah, nearly everything was intact. The only thing that you knew was not, was the heating.

You climbed up to the second floor and turned to the apartment space to your left. The places where the walls and door were supposed to be, had been taken down on both sides. It was nearly an open space except for the bedrooms and bathrooms. Turning on the working lightbulb in the apartment space you announced your presence.

“Hey my little furballs!”

You were met by half a dozen of meows and tails standing straight up in the air on seeing you. The cats and kittens, cuddled into each other over the heating pad Kline had put up for them, got up and came over to you, rubbing themselves with your legs and purring.

One of them, with black fur that shined blue under the lights like a clear night sky, stood up on his two feet and looked you with his big green eyes before meowing loudly.

“Yes, Panther, I’ve got your buttered toasties. Come on, Nina. You too, Sakura.”

Everyone looked at you with the same curiosity as you put down their share of milk and bread in a line.

You watched them eat and drink with such excitement in your heart as you opened your dinner and sat down on your mat.

You were about to dig into your vegetables when you heard a tiny creak from the wooden floors. You turned around to look at the dark space opposite to where you and your furballs were. The apartment next door was only lit by the glow of street lights from the sidewalk outside. Only silence clad the darkness there. You were about to go back to your dinner when a reflection in the window of that apartment caught the corner of your eyes.

You turned back but there was nothing there.

_ Alright, Y/N _ , you thought to yourself,  _ you’ve been coming here for quite some time now and nothing like this has happened before. So there is definitely someone or something here. _

You stood up, your hand slowly moving to your back as you took careful steps towards the space next door. Moving your grey T-shirt up, you felt the cold metal side on your fingers before they found the wooden handle and took out the knife. The cats were too busy in their food to notice you enter the space next door.

The floor creaked as you moved in. This apartment was covered in yellow wallpaper everywhere with patterns of what looked like green coloured plants. The kitchen counters had gathered dust everywhere except one tiny spot at the side that faced you. You positioned yourself and hovered the edge of your right palm over it, finding the similarity in the imprint on the dust.

Someone was here. And they had been watching you. And the only places where they could have disappeared to were the cold outside through the sealed windows or behind the bathroom and bedroom wall.

Everything rational inside you told you to get out of here. And like any person outside a horror movie, you heard your reasonable brain and slowly backed away from the who or the what you could not see.

“The building looks empty boss.”

You heard voices, moving around below you.

“Go look upstairs. I don’t want the body to be found before at least a month.”

Fear eroded your senses for five seconds. Just as the sixth came, you gathered yourself and removed your shoes- thanking whatever force made you buy these no laces loafer looking things- and went across the space to turn off the lights. You could hear footsteps approach the floor below you.

“This one’s empty t-oh look, there’s a punk rock wall here!”

The cats looked at you in confusion as you frantically looked around for a place to hide before turning back to the only wall standing there staring at you.

“Fuck,” cursed under your breath.

“Okay, okay, I’ll check upstairs but I’m telling ya I want something like that in my room too.”

_ Oh screw it _ , you thought, running on your toes towards the door standing in the wall with your hand tightly gripping your knife, _ I’d rather be scared by a ghost than end up in a body bag. _

Quietly opening the door, your entered inside the room and closed the door cautiously just as the footsteps announced themselves on the floor.

“What the hell? Where the walls at?”

You jumped at hoarse voice reverberating throughout never letting your eyes leave where you came from as you moved away from the door.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Look, boss, there are little furries purrin’ over here.”

_ Oh no! The cats! _

_ Oh no your tupperware you idiot _ , your brain shouted,  _ so much for being cautious. _

A pair of footsteps thumped up the stairs making you move further back into the room and wanting to dissolve in the wall behind you. And that’s when you noticed the wall closet.

“John, there’s food here,” a deep voice hissed.

“Yeah the cats gettin’ hungry.”

“You thick bamboo of a head! There’s plastic everywhere. Look! It’s warm. Someone’s here,” the cold voice declared.

It didn’t take you more than ten seconds to open the closet and climb inside.

You had your shoes huddled close to your chest with one hand while the other had the knife at ready.

“Check that fucking room, John!”

You tried to steady your wavering breath, inching away from the closet door that had tiny slits letting in the already filtered light coming from the window. Your back came in contact with the wall in a single step. The space was smaller than you’d thought. The curses grew louder as reluctant heavy footsteps came near the bedroom’s door.

Suddenly your senses noticed a vague familiarity around you. Like a blink-and-miss memory. Your mind walking away from the danger lurking outside and entering this dark square space, noticing a scent. A familiar scent. The one you’d come in contact with this morning. The wall behind you getting warmer in your back.

Chilling electricity passed throughout your body at the realisation as your defense system took over and tried to turn around, only to me stopped by a pair of strong, ripped arms wrapping themselves around your mouth and your hand that held the knife.

“Shh shh shhh.” You heard a familiar voice whisper in your ear before both of you heard the door click open.

“Yello’. Is there anybody there?”

You froze at the creepy voice that called out from the entrance of the room.

“It’s okay I won’t hurt you. I promise,” the man behind you persuaded, “I can’t say anything about the men outside.”

Your arms ached at the position it was being held at but you did not want to move it for letting the shady men outside know about your presence. And as much as the claustrophobic space was killing you besides a complete stranger, you didn’t let go of your knife.

The stranger’s breathing was frustratingly normal as his chest rose and fell behind you so languidly. His heartbeat too never showed any signs of panic whatsoever.

“I’m taking away my hands now, okay?” Came a pleading whisper of a question.

You nodded just as a tear fell off from your cheeks onto the back of his palm. His body remained motionless behind you, never feeling the urge to move away from you, if there was space to move away, that is.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered under his breath as he loosened his grip around your mouth calculatingly, his fingers grazing your lips as they moved away. The other hand, gloved, just left your arms as if it wasn’t putting any effort in keeping you from stabbing him.

“Hey boss!”

The loud voice made you jump, making the man behind you grab your waist gently as he whispered, “Move behind me.”

You shook your head, turning your knife, making it graze along the skin on your wrist while your thumb rested on the top of the handle.

You had one way of getting out of here and you were not compromising it.

You could have sworn you felt his breath get stuck in his lungs in surprise at your choice.

“What?” The 'boss’ entered the room as well.

“I think we can dump the body here. The cats can eat 'em up and no one gon’s ta know.”

The tensed air inside the entire room went silent for a moment as three humans questioned the sanity of the fourth one.

“Keep talking like that and I’ll bury you too, John. Now come with me to the basement. No one’s going to go there anytime soon. Faster John! We are not getting paid by the hour by that Russian!”

The footsteps receded downwards and you waited for a moment to let go of your breath and move towards the closet door when the arms still wrapped around you stopped you.

“No, they’re still here.”

The whisper now turned into a mumble, allowing you to hear his actual voice.

Nearly five minutes passed when the warm body towering from behind you finally shifted, letting go of your waist.

“Okay they’re gon-ghh”

You drove the knife through his thigh and dash out of there, nearly breaking the closet door off the hinges, never looking back at the door, the cats, the tupperware, stopping only when you had climbed up two storeys, opened your apartment door and bolted all latches.

Your breathless state and the nausea caught up as the rush receded, making you fall down on to the ground.

It took a while for you to collect your thoughts as you got up and stared outside the window overlooking the building you’d just run out from. The same windows that had lit up the dark space stared right at you, sitting in silence until you saw a shadow move.

The vibration of your phone forced out a small scream. By the time you turned back, the shadow had disappeared.

“Hello?” You tried to smoothen out the tremble in your voice.

“Hey Y/N, quick question- beer or whiskey?”

“Huh?”

“Pick one.”

You looked back at the window.

“Uhh…Whiskey.”

“Nice! Netflix or Local Cable?”

“Uhh…I don’t… Gina can we do this tomorrow?”

“…”

“Hello?”

“Are you with someone right now?”

A cold pain ran through your heart as your eyes went back to the building, searching for shadows.

“N-no.”

“It’s okay, darling. We’ll catch up tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

It took you a while to finally look away from the building and draw up all the curtains in your house and double check all the windows.

Turning off all the lights, you picked up a knife from the kitchen and took to your bedroom, planting it under your mattress- just in case- before allowing your body to melt down into the sheets, smacking your head in frustration at the fact that this was not what you had planned to overthink about while going to bed, knowing full well you weren’t going to sleep that night as well anyway.

 

What you did not know was that the world’s deadliest assassin had seen you cross the street to enter the leftover of an apartment building with your hands full while searching for his journal. He’d followed you inside from the backdoor and had curiously but cautiously seen you from the shadows as you mingled with a bunch of stray cats.

He’d tried to move closer to get a good look of this smile you had on your face when the floor gave away his presence, making him turn around the corner and into the room.

He’d expected you to give up on searching the source of the noise like any rational human being who knew fear would but he’d seen the pair of scruffy men enter the building from the window, with a huge suspicious duffel bag that he was too familiar with. He was about to warn you when he felt your light footsteps approach the door, making him retrieve into the closet.

Standing still as you searched around for a place to hide had been difficult for him. He could see the fear in your eyes as you hugged your shoes close to your chest while the knife was kept away from your body like someone who knew how to use it but only for defense.

What had been more difficult was the wave of panic that seared through him as he saw you open the closet door and stand right in front of him, your heated body touching his. The familiar slight scent of sweet oranges filled his nostrils as your hair brushed his stubble. He could feel himself relax as his senses started taking your presence in.

He had seen you go stiff for a moment and he knew. Without wasting any time, his reflexes took over, wrapping his arms around you.

He had felt your tear on his hand, wanting to apologise as many times as he could once you two were out of this mess.

He had felt your heavy breaths waiting to get out of the closet. How he wished to help you calm down.

And as soon as the threat had passed, he had wished to apologise and ask for his property back before you stabbed him in his thigh and ran away.

For a flash of a second his anger had known no bounds. But something changed. Just as he saw you standing in the building opposite him, looking out in his direction, his anger broke, giving way to something new.

He took out the knife from his leg and sat down beside the cats, who looked at him with pure judgement in their eyes.

“Mwerr,” Panther said angrily while Sakura meowed in question.

You had left quite a deep cut in him. He estimated it may take the entire night to heal and had slumped down into your mat.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into the air around him.

He felt the pain.

He felt your knife in his hand.

He felt a smile creep onto his face after ages.

“Brave gal.”

 

The alarm made your sleep deprived head pound in frustration. You got up and welcomed the warm morning sun rays until last night’s incident crept back into the bed with you.

Pushing it away, you moved up and to the door to go and tell Kline that you wanted to get your door locks changed.

As you opened it, you were welcomed by all your Tupperware, now clean and neatly stacked up at your doorstep with a note.

_ I apologise for yesterday. Here’s your property. I hope I can have mine back. I’ll wait in the City Park for you. _

_ -J.B.B. _


	2. Chapter 2

“John Watson. Channel your inner John Watson.” You persuaded yourself as you punished the slings of your bag with one hand, making it stick to your back higher than where it usually hung while tightening your other hand around your bottle.  
“Wait, no. That idiot likes danger. You’re supposed to run away from it. God! You stupid girl!”  
The morning sun was a welcoming sight in the cool winter breeze that would leave cracks in your cheeks if you did not have a good layer of moisturizer slathered on you. But even this cold disturbed air couldn’t cool down the heat rising at the back of your neck as you walked closer to the park.  
The City Park was a five-minute walk away from where you lived. Though it was one of the many parks inside the city, the locals preferred calling it City Park, for it was the first to initially exist as a playground for children before the city was modelled. The park covered enough acres to have its own mini forest inside it. You would find it alive with people or their pets at any time of the day you went there. Even at night, one would find couples, students, tourists lost in their own world here- something you had discovered on one of your long walks during the days you would not be visited by slumber. This place had become your bubble of solitude with the starry skies for a roof.  
“Morning Y/N!” A voice called from behind you. You immediately recognised the voice, the tension in your shoulders dropping a little.  
“Kalisha! Morning!” Your voice almost cracked as you greeted the patrol officer you had befriended during one of your night outs in the Park.  
The green **-** eyed woman, who’s African roots reflected through her beauty, would always greet you with a huge smile and kindness in her eyes. She was the same woman who had almost mistaken you for a homeless person lying on the park bench on your first encounter and had cautioned to go away until she saw your face and the tears that had left their marks on your cheeks. That had been one long night where the officer had sat down and listened to whatever you had to say and even bought you hot tea to help soothe your nerves after the breakdown you had.  
“Headed to work?” She asked, her braided brown hair neatly tied in a bun at the back.  
“Yes, ma'am,” you smiled back before adding, “I just have to meet…someone here before going to work.”  
Kalisha raised a brow at you as her open smile shifted into a smirk.  
“By someone you mean that guy?” She said as she pointed to a figure standing near the park pond under a tree.  
The familiar brown shirt, black trousers, black jacket and black cap brought back yesterday’s events, making her neck and arms ache at the thought of his arms around you; his body heat emanating behind you, making your stomach weak.  
You could see him steal glances at you, clearly aware of the woman in uniform standing by your side.  
“How did you…” Your voice trailed off as you noticed a red ball come to rest by his feet, making him flinch lightly.   
“I know a face out of place when I see one, Y/N.” You couldn’t decide whether she was stating a fact or giving you words of caution as your eyes followed the movements of the man in front of you. He picked up the ball carefully and gave it to the golden-haired boy that came running towards him. The little one’s high pitched, wide-grinned ‘thank you’ made the man smile involuntary- making your chest feel something fuzzy in turn. The smile vanished when his eyes turned back to the two of you. He couldn’t decide between crossed his arms, putting on the hips of leaning against the tree as he waited for you, making you smile involuntarily.  
“Should I come with you?” Kalisha brought you back to where you stood.  
“Huh? Uhh…no. I’m good, thanks Kalisha.” you confirmed as you took one lungful of air before walking towards him.  
“I’ll be around if you need me.” Kalisha announced, less for you and more for the man in front of her as she eyed him like a cat before walking away.  
The man took off his cap as you approached him, revealing his face to you for the first time.  
You confessed to yourself of not having seen such wondrous, soft eyes paired with a hint of a smile on pink lips surrounded by an uneven stubble.  
The man himself, held his breath for a moment as he saw you come towards him, tucking your hair-that was being teased by the breeze- behind your ear revealing the shimmer of your eyes in the morning sun.  
“Hi,” you felt your voice speak as you finally stood before him, having to look up a little.  
“Hi,” he answered, letting his lungs breathe easy for the first time as he brought forward his right hand.  
“I’m James.”  
 _James_. You let it run through your mind with the image of the man standing in front of you.  
“Hello, James. I-I’m Y/N.”  
“Nice to meet you, Miss…uhh…Y/N.”  
You stood there awkwardly smiling at each other till James offered you to sit on the bench behind you, cursing himself internally for not thinking about it earlier.  
The bench was big enough to accommodate the two of you. You sat down, trying to shift as much as you could to one corner, allowing him to sit beside you.  
And as he did, a gentle breeze blew towards you, bringing with it the familiar scent. James’ scent.  
 _Focus_ , you scolded yourself.  
James couldn’t help but notice the bags under your eyes that you tried to hide under your glasses. He noticed your eyes carry a familiar look behind them- the same look he would see in the mirror as he would wake up from a nightmare, never getting the sleep he craved- thinking to himself when was the last time he met someone who’d been so sleep deprived as to carry the same pain in their eyes as a monster like him.  
“I’m sorry about last night ma'am,” his voice came out of nowhere.  
“I meant no harm.”  
You really had no idea how to respond to that, your fingers digging into your coat in your lap as you still weighed the option of trusting this man.  
“Thank you for um…my Tupperware.” you eventually blurted out, finally looking at him and noticing something you hadn’t yet.  
“Is that…?” You didn’t finish your question, making James turn his head towards you only to find your fingers coming for the nape of his neck, making him flinch hard on your touch.  
“Sorry.” You jumped, retrieving your fingers, screaming on the inside of touching someone without their permission. “It looks like a deep scratch. Oh my…did Panther do this to you?”  
“Who?” He turned to look at you, brows furrowed in confusion, sending a flutter down your spine for some fucking reason.  
“Right. Sorry. The black cat. He scratches. He’s a scratcher.”  
James brought his long pale fingers to the spot you’d just lit up, running them over the wound before running them through his long hair, forcing them to cover it.  
“It’s fine. It’ll heal quickly.”  
You tried to hide the embarrassment burning on your cheeks with your own hair before turning to your bag.  
“I brought your journal. I didn’t want it to land somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be, that’s why I took it with me,” You explained handing it over from your tiny looking hands into his giant ones.  
“I swear I didn’t read it,” you assured James, whose eyes turned a shade lighter on seeing his lost treasure.  
“I know,” he replied like a reflex action, making you raise your brows in question.  
“You wouldn’t be sitting here if you’d read the all the wacky stuff I’ve spewed in there.” He smiled nervously, lowering his head in what you thought was his way of embarrassment.  
“Oh good!” You proclaimed to yourself out loud, “I’m not the only one who thinks like that about their journal.”  
James looked at you in confused surprise seeing you smile for the first time. He was not sure what emotion this warm uneasiness in his chest was supposed to be categorized under.  
“I’m…sorry for stabbing you.” You finally confessed. “I didn’t think twice ab-”  
You saw him chuckle, the warmth reaching his sparkling eyes.  
“It’s fine. No harm was done. I uh…I deserved that. In fact, it was very brave of you.”  
He didn’t miss the surprise in your eyes.  
“Really?” Not believing that you could be brave.  
“Yes,” he nodded as he looked at you with a hint of pride before reaching inside his jacket and taking out a roll of worn out leather.  
“Here,” he brought it towards you, “this is for you.”  
You hesitantly took the leather in your hands, fearing it to be some unreasonable gift- the inexpensive types you had gotten in the past that were of no value to you.  
You carefully undid the single string of rope keeping the leather rolled up and opened it, letting out a light gasp at what lay in front of you.  
“I accidentally broke your knife yesterday. So, I tried to find something similar but more sturdy for you.”  
The knife in front of you was definitely bigger than the one you had but James was right- that sharp little thing wasn’t sturdy. This, on the other hand, had tiny teeth on one side and a sharp blade on the other, resting inside a dark heavy wood that you weren’t sure about.  
“Oh!” Words were failing you right now.  
The person you had literally stabbed last night, was gifting you a dangerous knife.  
 _Who does that?!_  
“Thank you. I don’t know what to say,” you grazed your fingers over the metal, careful not to touch the edges, “I’ve never used-I-I mean for defence, of course, anything like this before.”  
“I’m sure your friend can teach you,” he acknowledged, casually pointing towards Kalisha, who’d been stealing glances at the two of you from behind the fountain.  
You couldn’t help the smile forming on your face, bringing your fingers to press your lips and suppress as much of it as you could, not realising Bucky followed your every movement even the one were inviting unvisited shivers inside him.  
The vibration of your phone in your pocket made you sit straight. You looked at the screen to see Gina’s name.  
“I should go,” you apologised, turning the vibrations silent, as you got up. He straightened up as we, standing to his full height again, without even a moment’s hesitation.  
“Thank you for the journal, ma'am. And I apologise again for the trouble I caused you.” His words came out like a soft tune to your ears.  
You gathered your bag and coat in your hands.  
“It’s okay, James,” your lips vibrating at his name, “I’m sorry too. And thank you for the…uh…knife. Have a nice day.”  
“You too.” He answered, his voice wavering a little as he saw you leave, wrapping your coat around you as you went, almost missing the light bruises on your arm where he had held you last night. The warm uneasiness vanished, giving way to a small stabbing pain in his chest.  
He saw Kalisha leave too but not before she threw a suspicion-filled glance at him.  
Bucky stood there for a moment, hands tight around his journal, lost in the conflicting thought of him making you smile and him hurting you where the bruises now marked your arm.  
A regret filled breath left his mouth as he was about to leave when was stopped short, letting out a tiny groan of an inevitable circumstance about to come his way.

The walk towards your workplace was languid one today. You had ample amount of time to get to the bookshop-cum-library and the thoughts running through your head really needed to be organised before you could dutifully submerge yourself in work.  
James.  
That name was swirling around in your mind like a silent stream in the mountains meeting a cluster of rocks. Your mind tried to reason with this cold wave in your heart, building up low-key pros and cons list somewhere to see if it was alright to think about him.  
All the possibilities were laid out by your brain. Stalker, random thug, mafia’s muscle, military-man, hitman, black ops, assassin- getting worse by the minute to pull out any tiny thread that would make him a danger for knowing where you lived. You really were scared for a moment before a realisation hit you- what’s the worse he could do to you? Kill you?  
Yeah. And that won’t be the worst thing you would have gone through.  
“Excuse me, miss,” a voice next to you brought you back to the sidewalk of the tall buildings rising on the sides.  
“Could you tell me where this address is?”  
You took the small note from a pair of wrinkled fingers and read the address.  
“Oh I know this building.” you looked up at the person asking for directions, “it is-”  
The face in front of you sent a chill down your spine as you tried to gather your nerves amongst the adrenaline rush building inside you.  
The man, who was being referred to as the 'boss’ last night, stood in front of you with a devilish smile on his face.  
You backed away from him an instant only to run into his subordinate behind you, whose broken-toothed smile scared you more than it should have.  
You couldn’t find your voice to scream for help and so, ran into the only exit you saw- a small alleyway between the two buildings standing by you.  
Cursing yourself, you reached for the knife inside your coat as you ran, swerving by the garbage bins. You could hear their footsteps rushing behind you despite the loud throbbing of your veins all over your body.  
“Hans! Get her!”  
You ran faster at that man’s command, looking back at him getting closing the distance between you, only to run into the hurdle you missed in front of you.  
A pair of hands grabbed the life out of your arms, making you wince. But before any voice could escape into the cold quote stench-filled air of the alley, you were gagged from behind.  
The torturous arms were that of a six feet five building of a man, ripped everywhere; dead eyes carrying scars all over his face.  
“Put her in the van,” the boss man commanded.  
As soon as the giant let go of one of your arms to push you towards the white van parked ahead, you got the knife out and went for his leg.  
His grunt nearly turned into a scream as you brought out the knife and swung it out towards the slim faced subordinate 'John’, catching his ear and cheek.  
The arm that was still in the giant’s grasp felt a jolt of pain as the strength in his hands tried to crush it. You winced as you turned towards him with the knife that he easily blocked, doing the same to your wrist until you let go of the one thing that you were holding on to for help.  
“Get this bitch inside,” the boss hissed before turning to the front of the van.  
The giant picked you up by your hair and the bruised arm before throwing you on the vehicle’s floor.

“You really should look around before crossing streets, Missy. You never know who’s watching you run out of abandoned buildings at night.”  
Your bloodshot eyes had been blurring and clearing themselves time and again for about an hour now. The cheek that had been hit by the 'boss’ to stop you from resisting them pounded with pain. The cable ties dug through your wrists as they ran around the armrests of an old wooden chair they’d brought out from somewhere in the building opposite your house.  
They’d brought you back to this place. It was obvious to you what they were planning; you were soon going to accompany the poor fellow that was lying in the basement inside some body bag.  
Great, you thought to yourself, the one time I decide I wouldn’t really care if I die today and some force somewhere moulds that specific thought into a reality. How convenient.  
Your phone vibrated on the table beside you where your blood smeared knife lay.  
The boss picked it up to show you the name on the screen.  
Gina.  
“I’ll just text her you’re busy. Is that okay sweetheart?”  
You felt your stomach nearly regurgitate at his cooing voiced smacking your ears with poison.  
You didn’t look at him as he swiped away with the default text.  
“Boss what are we waiting for. Just kill this stupid slut already,” John announced as he winced while covering his slashed side with a handkerchief.  
Your lips found a smile building behind the gag around them on seeing your handiwork on John’s face.  
“Shut up, John,” Boss snapped, taking your knife in a handkerchief and wiping it clean.  
You gulped at the flawless shining steel glistened in your eye, flashing all the Law & Order episodes that had anything to do with a knife.  
Two men entered the room and stood by the door with identical bags, making your heart race at the thought of your limp body inside them.  
Fuck.  
Your hands and feet wriggled inside the cable ties, cutting through at every harsh graze as the blood rushed to your brain to let the gravity of the situation seep in.  
“Did you get them?” the boss asked without taking his eyes off your knife, making of the new men open up their bag and produce another bag that he carefully placed on the table and unrolled. Your breathing grew erratic at the site of medical grade knives, forceps, syringes, cutters and slicers. This was worse than the Law & Order episode you had running in your mind. So much worse.  
“Now,” the boss finally turned towards you with your knife pointed at your vein in the wrist, grazing it slightly with cold metal, while still covering the handle in his handkerchief, “answer my question sweetheart. Hmm?”  
Your eyes stung as the sweat running down your forehead entered and mixed with the tears in them.  
“Was anyone else here with you last night?”  
James.  
Your mind called out the name like a final prayer.  
You shook your head.  
“Good,” he nodded, “good. I believe you.”  
“Anyone know what happened here?”  
You shook your head again.  
“Does…Gina know?”  
Your lungs ached at the thought of Gina being heard. You shook your head as a whimper left your mouth.  
“Good. So you are the only one who was present here last night.”  
You nodded, letting the tears fall down quickly.  
“Well, that was easy.” He announced to the room before coming behind you as he carefully angled the knife on your dominant wrist.  
“I promise,” he whispered into your ear, placing the tip where the vein was visible, “this will be quick.”  
Oh for fuck’s sake, you prayed in your head as you closed your eyes, if there is some stupid force looking out for you, please do something.  
“Here we go.”  
Clank, clank, clatter.  
You jumped at the sound. So did everyone in the room, guns and knives drawn out.  
“Must be the cats,” John mentioned casually, still pointing the gun at the door. Something had fallen down from an upper storey near the foot of the stairs.  
“Smith.” The boss commanded, still standing behind you.  
You saw Smith walk out of the room for a moment, kneel down for something and come back with something shiny in his hand.  
You recognised it the moment he brought it forward to show to his boss.  
You weren’t able to breathe as you tried to make sense of what was going on.  
“A broken knife? Who is this son of a bitch?”  
“I’ll go take care of it.”  
Smith’s silent footsteps creaked the stair boards till they vanished two floors above.  
There was dead silence. All five of you waited with unspoken tension to hear something. Anything.  
A loud thud came from the entrance as Smith’s body landed on the foot of the stairs, his neck twisted at an unruly angle, gazing into the room.  
Your mind went into a spiral of curses as the men around you rattled and took positions, aiming for the entrance, forgetting about you all together. The boss went to the table leaving your knife and picking up his gun.  
The giant placed himself with the wall, to land a surprise attack on whoever was out there while John stood aiming his gun at the door and the third guy did the same while shielding the boss.  
Your arms were shaking with fear as the silence grew louder around you.  
A creak of the stair boards alerted everyone, causing a reflex action inside you, making you wince through your gag to alert whoever was out there until a cold barrel rested on your temple, the boss shushing you with his finger to his pale lips.  
The creaks grew closer, making the giant loaded his firearm carefully, ending with a click.  
Silence.  
The wall around him broke as an arms came for his throat and dragged him back through the hole.  
Moments later the familiar figure in brown jacket and black trousers entered the room throwing the giant’s gun right into John’s forehead with uncomfortable ease, knocking him over as he blocked a shot aimed for him with his gloved hand and went on to throw the man at his left into the wall behind you, tearing it apart as well.

“Jbss,” you mumbled through the gag, half relieved, half terrified.  
His eyes settled on you as his gloved hand moved on its own in front of his face to shield him from the endless silenced shots aimed at him by the boss, who kept moving closer to him to get a better shot.  
“Jbss nnhh!” You tried to warn him, as the boss drew closer to him, only to have the gun locked into his hand as it crunched in between his palm like a soda can.  
Bucky’s eyes never left you. He kept moving closer to you despite your warnings, a fire igniting inside him on the fresh bruise he saw forming around your cheek.  
“Who did this?” He asked, his voice controlled but his eyes giving the building rage away.  
You saw his hand come forward towards your throbbing cheek, before pausing at a safe distance.  
Your eyes met his again before going towards the boss, who was recklessly trying to reload his gun.  
Bucky did not waste any time.  
He picked up an incision tool, driving it straight into the boss’ shoulder as he stuffed his mouth with a rag and punching him just where it had hurt you.  
The latter screamed his soul into the rag as his gun fell from his hand. From where you sat, it looked like he had paralysed the man.  
He was quick to cut your hand ties with your knife and removing the gag from your mouth, instructing you to take a mouthful of air.  
“Breathe, Y/N. Brea-”  
A grunt left his mouth as John stabbed him in the upper back.  
Leaving the knife in your lap, he landed his elbow into John’s face, turned and landed a punch into his jaw.  
You got your feet free and shoved yourself onto the man who had come out of the broken wall and was aiming a knife at Bucky. The man, in turn, shoved you down, his knife aimed at your chest before you felt yourself sliding away, slashing your knife through his calf muscles as Bucky brought you to himself, before attacking the man- who was now throwing curses at you- in his stomach and liver with perfect precision and ease before punching his voice box.  
“Who the fuck are ya?”  
The boss finally stood up taking the gag out of his mouth, his shoulder drenched in his blood.  
You kicked the gun away from the man as you backed away from him, your cheek burning just by looking at him.  
Bucky didn’t utter a word, his breathing controlled and silent as he stepped in between you and the man, his long hair nearly masking his face.  
He walked towards the boss, startling him for a moment before he took out the man’s phone from his pocket and brought it towards him.  
“Call your cleaning crew and tell them to clean up this mess.”  
There was hesitation in the man’s eyes for a moment before he took his phone and did what Bucky said.  
“How long before they arrive?”  
“Ten minutes.”  
“Good,” Bucky acknowledged before punching the man unconscious.  
You were pretty sure he was dead already.

“We should get out of here.”  
Bucky stated as he picked up your phone, bag and coat and handed it to you.  
“Come over to my place,” you responded without missing a beat.  
“Wh-”  
“You are in no condition to go around without grabbing attention to yourself. And I know for a fact you don’t have a place to stay right now.”  
Bucky didn’t negate your words.  
“Come on,” you said before stopping with a sudden jolt, “wait” confusing him for a moment.  
“Take off your jacket.”  
He looked at you with questionable eyes.  
“Please, James, just trust me.”  
And he did.  
You took his blood-spattered jacket and gave him your black coat to put on.  
“Glove.” You gave him your pair out of your bag, “Yours is ripped. I can see the metal.”  
Bucky couldn’t help but be surprised at how your mind was working through the shock right now.  
You unfolded your green shirt’s cuffs to cover your bloodied wrists and unfolded your jeans into your boots to hide your ankles.  
Taking your belongings, and Bucky by the arm, you moved out of the building. You crossed the street, him following behind you, both of your trying to be as low-key as possible.  
You thanked all the Gods when no one greeted you at the entrance, allowing you to quickly move toward the elevator.  
Ding.  
“Y/N!”  
Your heart came up to your throat as Micheal- Mr Kline’s husband- stood in front of you in the elevator.  
“Hi, Michael!” Your voice trying to sound the normal enthusiastic self as you dragged Bucky inside the elevator with you, making Michael bring up so many questions in his mind.  
“What the hell happened?!”  
The glass walls of the elevator showed you your dirty clothes and coloured cheek while the only scratch visible on Bucky was the one left by Panther.  
“R-Rugby.”  
“What?!”  
“We had a-a rugby match today. My friends and I. I took a pretty hard hit to my face. It isn’t as bad as it looks, but uh…everyone was really worried about me. So…my friend… James brought me home.” You wrapped your hands lightly around his arm to display some, if not overly, casual affection between the two of you.  
James nodded at Michael, you gave back a relieved nod.  
“Be careful honey.”  
“I will.”

The elevator door shut back up, leaving the two of you to breathe again.  
“Fuck.” You rubbed your eyes under your glasses not believing you lied so easily to one of the two people who considered you as their daughter.  
The elevator moved slower than its usual pace making you tense up on the thought of meeting someone else on the way before Bucky’s face in the mirrored wall distracted you.  
“How did you find me?”  
Bucky looked back at your reflection trying to form some words before giving up and bringing forward something in his hand that was away from you.  
“You forgot your bottle at the Park. I’d come here thinking I’d leave it at the reception but those suspicious looking goons distracted me.”  
Your brows shot up in surprise as your eyes tried their best not fall out, the proceeding silence between the two of you making Bucky worry.

A tiny ‘huh’ burnt your voice box before you shut your mouth. No sooner a snicker left the back of your throat before it turned into a laugh, taking him by surprise.  
“All those people back there are messed up because of my bottle.”  
You laughed again.  
Bucky joined you this time.


	3. Chapter 3

“Home sweet home.”  
You ushered the six feet tall mystery man/saviour inside your humble abode and watched him take small careful steps so as not to ruin your place by his presence.  
Bucky looked around the apartment, taking everything in, realising his inbuilt reflex of scanning his surroundings with utmost detail spilling out from somewhere within him.  
“You have a very nice home, ma'am,” Bucky complimented as he consciously put his hands behind him, making his shirt tighten beneath your coat. You could feel the warm ache coming back beneath your throat.  
“Okay,” you startled yourself out of the beautiful trance as you stepped closer to him, making him retreat a little, “first of all, give me the coat.”  
He followed your word like a command and watched you put the coat-along with his jacket- into a basket labelled ‘cleaners’.  
“Second thing, please stop calling me ma'am. Y/N is fine.”  
Bucky measured the happy concern in your brows as you pressed your hands together in nervousness, the growing bruise on your cheek burning something inside him while the thin smile on your lips somehow making his eyes light up a little- enough for you to notice the difference.  
He nodded.  
“Good. Lastly,” you added as you went across the wooden floor to your bedroom and brought out a fresh bathrobe, “take off your clothes.”

After a minute of awkward silence and more awkward explanation of getting the man cleaned up and tended to his wounds, Bucky finally found himself standing in your bathroom. He took off his shirt and watched the mirror reflect the metal- that he’d been hiding today with more effort than the last few months- back at him. The scars where his skin stopped and the metal began looked back at him, questioning his reason to even be standing here.  
He quickly moved his gaze above his neck, running a hand through his hair as he moved the ravens away from his face.  
James Buchanan Barnes.  
He remembered the name, running it through his mind two more times before letting go of his breath.  
The shower was cold when he first stepped in, marking his body in goosebumps. The coldness seeped into his hair, turning his scalp numb as he stood there. Another memory hit from the frost shadows- the cold mountains, the fall, the pain.  
He rested his hands on the wall in front of him, trying to anchor himself back to the present as the muscles in body tightened under his skin. But the flashes kept coming, making his breathing uneasy, his mind blurry, feeling his heartbeat take the speed of a train. He felt himself stand over the edge, about to jump into the abyss when a voice was heard.  
It was Y/N. She was singing. Bucky didn’t know the song. But it didn’t matter as he focused all his senses on to her voice. She forgot the words once but she kept going, singing in a soothing tone.  
The breathing got easier. The muscles let the tension go.  
The flashes were gone.

“Here,” you directed Bucky to sit at the kitchen table as he came out of your room in your oversized 'I got Captain America’s Back’ T-shirt you’d bought from some online store when The Avengers had assembled for the first time during the battle of New York. _God, you are such a thirsty bitch for superheroes_ , you’d told yourself time again when you were going through the 'Avengers’ phase.  
You confessed to yourself that the shirt looked better on your guest than it did on you as it hugged him so comfortably. You’d even noticed a hint of a sly smile on his face as he checked out the tee in the mirror. The trousers he wore were a pair you had borrowed from your neighbour, pleased at yourself to see they fit him quite well.  
His metal hand stood out the most in the ensemble but not in a gory way. The light coming in from the window danced on the reflective surface, lighting up the walls and ceiling of your apartment, making you smile on the inside.  
Bucky sat down opposite you as you brought out the medical kit.  
He was confused and curious to see you take in his presence- especially his metal arm- so well that he found himself suspecting you for a second before putting that thought in a box on a table in a corner of his mind.  
“I don’t…need it,” Bucky acknowledged your actions as he politely declined.  
“Oh! You sure? Okay. Then I’ll need it. Let me just go take a quick shower.”

Bucky sat there motionless for a moment as he heard you behind him, in your room- a little cautious of the fact that your room basically had no wall or door to separate the space between the two of you.  
As soon as he heard the bathroom door click, he let his eyes roam about, taking everything in again but this time not out of caution. Your place smelled and radiated warmth- the delicious smell of something cooking in the oven, the soft lights over the kitchen table, the cosy sofa, the tiny bamboo bunch sitting on the coffee table. Everything radiated so much love and care.  
A loud vibration caused Bucky to flinch, nearly making him hit your phone and smash it to pieces.  
 _Gina_ , it said.  
Bucky turned towards the bathroom door and then back the phone, not sure what to do for the first few seconds. Just when he breathed at the phone that had gone silent, it started buzzing again.  
He finally got up and knocked on the door hesitantly.  
“I-It’s your phone. It keeps ringing.”  
You knew who it was and what she was going to ask you. You did not have an explanation for the smart woman on the other end of the line at the moment. But you did know what would be a good distraction.  
“Um…James? Could you please pick up and tell her I can’t come to the phone right now. And that I won’t be coming to work today. Thanks.”  
Bucky stood at the door for a moment, not sure if what he heard was right but he really wanted the buzzing in his hand to stop.  
He tapped on the green button over the screen.  
“Y/N where the hell are you?”  
“Uhh…Y/N can’t come to the phone right now.”  
“…”  
“Hello?”  
“Who are you?”  
“I’m… James.”  
“James. Where is Y/N?”  
“She’s in the bathroom. She says she won’t come to work today.”  
“…”  
“She’ll probably call you back as soon as she can.”  
“…Okay. And you and Y/N are…”  
“…Friends.” James announced, recalling Y/N’s words from the elevator.  
“Right.”  
Bucky thought he heard a chuckle from the other end of the phone.  
“It was nice talking to you, James. Have a good day you two.”  
Bucky could hear the overexposed enthusiasm in the woman’s voice, never truly knowing the underlying meaning of the statement.  
The door clicked open and a gush of warm air filled with subtle floral fragrances filled up Bucky’s nostrils.  
You stood in front of him in a black tank top and black shorts, your washed hair dried of any excess water as it lay in its dense darkness everywhere around you.  
You noticed Bucky take a few steps back, out of your room to give you space, his eyes carefully watching you before he stopped, his eyes locking at the bruises he had not seen before became more visible on your clean skin.  
“Your…uhh,” he pointed to your wrists and arms.  
You followed his eyes to your wounded wrists that were thumping with the heat built up after the cold shower.  
“Yeah. The cable ties did that,” you whispered as your brain went back to the room you were tied in, teary and trembling on the inside at what you thought might have been your final moments, now questioning why they were not as scary as they should’ve been.  
The oven dinged, making you jump back to the present. You took the cooked pasta and served it in two bowls.  
“Don’t be surprised when you first taste it. It’s a savoury plum sauce recipe from my grandma. I don’t know how she came up with the combination but its really good.”  
You were putting the empty pan in the sink when the hot edge burned into the fresh cut.  
“Ahh, ff-” you hissed leaving the pan to rattle in the sink as you retrieved your hand.  
Bucky was behind you in no time, opening the water tap to help ease the pain on your wrist, his hands ever so light under yours.  
“Come here,” closing the tap, he wrapped his warm fingers around your palm and motioned you towards the sofa, taking the medical kit in his other hand on the way.  
As you sat down opposite him, you saw a strange look in his eyes. His brows relaxed, his eyes focused on the alcohol he was bringing out over the cotton, his lips in a thin line, opening up a bit- as he dabbed the wet cotton over your wounds carefully- before forming a smooth curve to blow over the alcohol smeared cuts, defeating the burning edges with his air. To you, his movements felt like he had done this before.  
Unknown to you, he felt the same. Bucky felt he’d done this more times than he could count, flashes of him bandaging a fellow comrade riling up somewhere in his mind.  
A wince out of you brought him back to you.   
You were pressing your bruised cheeks with your fingers to see how deep the damage was and how far it went.  
“Stop that,” Bucky’s voice commanded, making you put your hands on your thigh in a flash.  
You swore you felt his face give you a stony stare, feeling he might scold you any second.  
“I was just chec-”  
“Do you have ice?” He asked.  
You nodded, “The top of the fridge,” still stuttering from the effects of the stare.

The kitchen towel filled with ice came in contact with your bruise, making you wince louder. Bucky moved the bundle away from the bruise a little before placing it back, making you pull away from the cold.  
His metal hand came to rest on the opposite side of your face, sending a cool shiver down your spine, as he tried to keep you from moving again.  
“Stop moving,” his voice stressed.  
“It burns! Why the heck does it burn?” You pleaded, trying to get away again but failing as the arm kept you in position.  
“Well, I bet it’s not worse than you picking up fights in the alleyways, doll.”  
A wind of silence passed between the two of you as your eyes locked into each other.  
Bucky had no idea why he spoke what he spoke, not breathing as he looked at you apologetically.  
You chuckled nervously. “Yeah, that’s true, actually,” making him smile.

Bucky had devoured his share and two helpings quite quickly, making your heart flutter with so much pride in your cooking skills even though you only knew how to make three dishes. And store bought ramen.

He insisted on cleaning the dishes, not wanted you to wet your bandages. You decided to take the dirty laundry basket down to the washing machines, wanting to get rid of any remnants of the day’s events while giving you time to think about what to do further.   
Grabbing your favourite black woollen jacket and the basket, you made your way to the laundry room.  
You knew by James’ unkept looks that he didn’t have a place to go to- at least not a decent one. And the things you had seen him do today made you question who or what this guy was. Some sort of ex-military personnel lying low or running away. What made it worse was the fact that he had done absolutely nothing that you could point at and say he wanted to hurt you or was a danger around you. Even worse? Your gut didn’t have anything bad to say about him either. And your gut was always right- having always pointed out at innocent faces that reeked of malice on the inside.  
 _Well_ , you thought to yourself-putting the basket down in front of you with a long deep breath, ready to clean up the dirt- _things have worked out till now and I’m sure they’ll work out from here on as well._  
You were loading the washer with your and his shirts when the journal fell out from the basket.  
You picked up to find the familiar initials back in your hand, a crinkling feeling like ants crawling up your feet, ran up your entire body.  
You looked at the door you had come in from before turning your gaze back at the journal.  
 _J.B.B._  
You opened it to read, never realising the gravity of what waited for you on the other side.

“Y/N…Y/N?”  
“Huh?”   
A warm hand pressed your shoulder, bringing you to the humming of the washing machines around you.  
You focused your eyes back to the present to meet Kline’s.  
“Sweetheart, are you alright?” His voice reflecting concern, his eyes moving between your bruised cheek and your moist eyes as he wrapped his hands around your shoulders.  
You couldn’t bring yourself to say anything, finally nodding and giving a weak smile.  
“Michael told me what happened. Y/N, child, are you _sure_ you are alright?”  
You nodded again but this time a string inside you broke.  
Tears came rolling down like a lost stream just looking for an outlet, never stopping.  
Kline took you in his warm embrace. He stroked your hair and shushed ’ _its okay_ ’s into the air around you, letting you get it all out.

Kline insisted on walking you back to your floor as he took your basket but not before you had tucked the journal safely inside your jacket.  
He had noticed that, along with the bandages that peaked through your jacket and socks but he chose not to speak of it.  
You opened the door to your home and found the usual mundane silence of every other day waiting for you.  
You took a step inside.  
The apartment was empty.  
“James?” Your voice called out into the warm air of the familiar space as Kline stood at the doorway, confused.  
You took in his scent but could not find me anywhere. Your chest squeezed in pain, never wanting to open the door inside your head that was being pushed from the other side by a thought you did not want to meet.  
“Y/N?”  
A voice came from the doorway, lighting up your insides, closing the door inside you with a slam.  
You turned to see Kline looking up at the man with total surprise in his eyes.  
“The cats were crying. So I went and gave them some leftovers. I hope that’s okay.”  
Bucky looked between you and Kline, feeling exposed in front of the man who stood at the entrance of your home.  
You couldn’t help but smile as your heart filled up but never spilt over, thanks to the recent flood you’d experienced in the laundry room.  
“Yes, that’s okay. Come on in. It’s cold outside. Mr Kline w-”  
“I’ll leave you now,” Kline said, never taking his eyes off Bucky.  
“Is your friend…” he paused.  
“James. James Barnes, sir.” He said.  
You saw Kline’s expression change, a certain light in his grey eyes.  
“Will Mr Barnes be staying with you or-”  
You thanked Kline on the inside as you interrupted him.  
“Yes. James will be staying here for now ” you announced.  
You were sure about it. Surer than you’d ever been.


	4. Chapter 4

The sound of your wall clock echoed throughout the house. You concentrated on your deep breaths with the rhythmic tick-tock. Your body had somewhat adjusted to your sofa but it still felt weird. Nodding off while binge-watching a series was different from consciously making an effort to sleep on the sofa. This was taking a lot of effort and time. You could’ve already switched on the TV but were afraid of startling James in the middle of the night.  
 _“No,” you reassured him, “you’ll sleep on the bed. I’ll take the couch” and went back to putting a new bedsheet on your tiny makeshift bed._  
Bucky tried to reason with you but you didn’t listen.  
“But it’s alri-”  
“Come on, man. This thing is barely going to get your one side over it; half of you when I open it up,” you explained as you opened the grey couch and turned it into a soft flatbed of sorts. “It supports my body just enough to not think about the monsters un-just go take the bed.”  
Without hearing anything you’d already plopped down into your new grey space and were wrapping yourself up into a burrito roll.  
Bucky looked at you struggling with your blanket for a moment before stepping into your room. He looked at the bed and tried to make out if there was a side you preferred. You’d changed the sheets and taken your pillow with you, not leaving much for him to think on as he finally sat down on the mattress.  


_He looked back into your direction, watching you open your hair and let it flow a little over the edge of the sofa, the streetlight seeping in from outside colouring them different shades of warm gold. He followed your fingers working on your scalp, pressing them hard and letting go; the stretched strings in your brows finally relaxing as you let go of hot air from your mouth._

_Bucky looked away._  
He came face to face with his reflection in the window facing him. He moved his hair back with both his hands, the metal making him a little uneasy as it touched his face. His eyes tried to find something within the man sitting in front of him. Anything.  
A reason.  
With an elongated sigh, he turned away from the window and lifted himself onto the bed, moving the warm blanket over himself- knowing he did not need one- like an unspoken ritual of gratitude.   


_His nostrils flared up as he smelled you all over him. The warm blanket brought with it your scent. He closed his eyes and took it in and he could see it. He could see a small house with porch; an armchair resting there as the radio and a bottle of beer sat on a table beside it. He turned up the radio to hear Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade; the familiar notes bringing a smile on to his lips. He could smell the warmth radiating from inside the house, smelling of mashed potatoes, roasted chicken and whiskey. A scene coming alive from some long lost wish. That’s what your mere lingering scent did to him. Sooner than he knew, he felt a wave wash over him, bringing with it an aching yawn and droopy eyes- something he had not felt in ages, quite literally. And just like that, he was out cold._

Here you were, already given up on getting any sleep tonight either. Sighing, you turned and laid down on your side, your head resting on your arms to see the scarce dust particles shining in the streetlight, floating, wandering aimlessly.

Your eyes moved to your room. The large figure on your bed breathed lazily on his side; his form, for some reason, was quite mesmerising to watch. His face was towards the bedroom window, away from you; his metal arm reflected the golden glow from outside onto your ceiling like mirrors dancing around your house. You failed to suppress the smile forcing its way onto your lips while watching the reflections shift to and fro as Bucky breathed.  
Your smile wavered for a second, your breathing stopped as well, as Bucky shifted and turned around in his sleep.

You brought your blanket up to your nose as you watched him settle back into his slumber.

Now his metal arm was sprawled across the length of the bed, his face in the shadow of his hair. You could only make out parts of his features from where you lay, subconsciously moving his hair away from his face so you could see what he looked like when he was his most vulnerable.  
Your brain scolded you for imagining yourself in his arms- not because you had just discovered that he was an assassin created by an organisation named Hydra that had tried to wipe out all traces of humanity from his being who was trying to remember and learn whatever little he could about the world around him, but because you two were a complete strangers and it was really bad of you as a host to think about the perfection laying on your bed in such a manner- even if it was just laying in his arms strong enough to rip a wall apart.  
 _I really need to get my mental health checked_ , you made a note to yourself.  
You noticed his arm fidget for a moment under him. You moved your blanket down from your face a little.  
His arm fidgeted again while his nostrils took in a sharp breath, a low grunt escaping his throat.  
Your head went up to make sure you weren’t dreaming despite being fully aware and frustrated that you needed sleep to do that exact thing.  
A growl escaped his throat again, his body fidgeting more visibly now as his chest struggled to breathe.  
You felt yourself rise up from the sofa.  
“James?” Your voice was soft.  
He responded with his hands balling in fists as he took in short breaths.  
You were already walking towards him to confirm your fears.  
He was having a nightmare.

“James?” You called out.

His grunts were turning into feral growls. You could see his skin glisten under the dim foreign lights until you were close enough to see he was sweating.  
“James, are you alright?” You called out once again, never raising your voice as your hand found his shoulder.

A jolt of pain surged through you as his eyes opened and locked on to yours. His metal hand grabbed your arm with half the restraint as his soulless eyes bore holes through you.

This man wasn’t James.  
“James, wha-”  
You felt his metal pull you towards him as you landed on the bed where he had been while he towered over you, his dead eyes never giving away any emotion.

You tried to get up, moving your legs in an effort to get away from him, but he pinned you down by the throat from his flesh hand as his legs locked you under him, making it impossible for you to move in any direction.

“James, stop it’s me, Y/N.”  
You struggled to shout, your free hand fighting his flesh around you, as beads of sweat went down his jaw.  
Your fears were coming true in front of you. Bucky was in a trance.  
Your fight response tried to take over your body as your mind went to the one object near you that could hurt him but only to the point to bring him out of his nightmare.  
Your hand went down your mattress and found the knife you’d put there last night. Aiming for his leg- again- you went for a sloppy strike and were stopped without much effort.  
“James, no! Wake up!” You shouted as you struggled, trying to keep the knife from his grasp, your wounded wrists hurting with the pain his hold was causing.  
“Bucky!” You called out between tears, remembering the redundant name from his journal, not giving up under his weight.  
You saw his eyes falter through the dead inside them, blinking at you for a moment.  
“Bucky please.” You pleaded out loud as he raised to knife in his hand while your fingers scratched and struggled with the metal around him.  
You never left his wavered gaze- forcing him to look at you- as he arm moved, ready for the strike, bringing the knife down for the final blow.  
He growled as he struck down the knife right into his thigh, breaking him both physically and mentally as the pain washed over him.  
His arm loosened his grip on you in no time as he slid away from you, to the edge of the bed; sitting on his thighs, gasping for air as his shoulders stooped.  
You sat up to the sight of his defeated state, gasping for air yourself. You saw his eyes focus at something in the far off distance, trying to make sense of the what and the how that just happened.  
The gasps for air slowed down but did not vanish.  
You stood up on your knees as you moved an inch forward. You placed your hand on his thigh, close to the knife. When he made no effort to stop you, you took the handle in the other and pulled it out of him, dropping it on the wooden floor with a clatter. He did not even wince.

You moved closer to him, your body still shivering from the shock, and placed your hands carefully around his shoulders.

“It’s okay,” your wreck of a voice declared with a whisper.  
Your trembling fingers tried to soothe his back as you brought your chest close to his.  
“It’s alright. It’s over now.” You heard your weakened voice say.  
You didn’t really know who you were speaking the words for- him or yourself.  
You ignored the shivers as you kept soothing Bucky’s back, trying to calm any guilt storm that might set in.  
But it was the warmth and the cold that slowly wrapped around your back that broke you.

Tears came down freely as hands balled up in them whatever fabric laid over the bodies, stroking each other’s hair as the exchanged warmth calmed down the infuriated ocean inside the other till all that could be heard was the rhythmic tick-tock of the wall clock in the air.


	5. Chapter 5

Darkness.  
Silent breaths.  
Lowering and rising of the warmth around your chest.  
The texture of tangled hair.  
The touch of warm and cold sensations at once.  
The smell of cold weather mixed with sweat.  
Right now, they were tethers to the reality; anchors of the fact that you were alright. Safe.  
“I’m sorry, Y/N.” A voice brought you out of the comfortable void. You opened your eyes to find yourself back in your room, your arms wrapped around Bucky, your fingers in his hair, your head resting on his shoulder. You didn’t move away from him, feeling his arms still holding your back.  
When was the last time someone had held you like this?  
You couldn’t remember. Even if there was someone, they’d been long forgotten, their memories thrown away into the bottomless ocean.  
You stayed there, cocooned in his touch, as you watched the streetlights go out and the late night or early morning sky finally breathe.  
“I’m sorry too,” you finally managed to whisper as a tear went down your temple and onto his shoulder, making you finally pull up your head. Bucky carefully retreated his touch as you sat up.  
You two were so close to each other to finally define each other’s features. The bloodshot eyes, baggage of sleepless nights under them, the grooves and scars on the skin, the tiny hairs around the lips,  those chapped pink and brown folds parted, the warm breaths on the skin. Both of you took everything in.  
“You didn’t d-”  
“I read your journal.”  
Bucky came out of a daze as he let your words register in his mind.  
 _So that’s why you’d called him Bucky._  
He sat there looking at you with guilt-ridden eyes turning into a pool of questions, hiding a tiny bud of another feeling growing within him.  
“Why am I still here?” His raspy voice spoke with permeable cracks.  
You didn’t respond to that question, stealing your eyes away for a moment as a familiar uneasiness started building up in your chest.  
You took in one lungful of breath and looked back at him, trying your best to form the words.  
“Because you are literally not the worst person I’ve met.”  
Your smile never reached your eyes, making Bucky doubt what he heard. His brows concentrated the frustration in them when he proceeded to say something but stopped on seeing you turn around.  
Your entire body grew heavy at the thought of what you were about to do. Switching on the bedside lamp, you moved your hair in front and onto your chest before picking up the hem of your T-shirt from the front and pulling it over your head.  
You could hear Bucky catch his breath at the site in front of him.  
A scar ran down from your left shoulder to the right side of the hips, the fine- almost invisible- line turned deeper in the middle, the irregular skin smooth and a shade lighter at the edges containing the darker tones inside them.  
“I’ve experienced worse.”  
 _Twelve years_ , you thought, _twelve years of silent suffering only to make yourself vulnerable like this tonight._  
Your body jumped as it felt his touch over your exposed skin.  
“Sorry,” you both apologised in unison.  
Bucky hesitated a little before lightly planting his fingers back on your skin as he studied the wound.  
“This is…someone tried to kill you.” The statement sounded more like a question. He was not wrong. Hell, he was on point.  
“Thankfully he wasn’t a trained assassin who knew how to work with a knife.”  
You tried to lighten up the mood only to curse yourself two seconds later. “Sorry, that was inappropriate.”  
Bucky broke away from your skin, worried he might overstep a boundary here if he wasn’t careful. “Who did this?” He asked as he reached out for your tee, stretching it over your arms and carefully pulling it over your head.  
It was a small gesture but the overwhelming feeling it created in your heart tried slowly to replace the heaviness building up there.  
“This…this guy I knew,” you sighed as you scratched the back of your neck turning around and facing him, pulling your legs close to your chest, “when I was in school, uhh…along with a couple more students, had to stay back and work for the annual fest. We-um-it was winter and the sky was already dark around six in the evening. My friend and I were to go home together as it was a long lonely walk to either of our houses. She was waiting for me outside in the parking lot when that guy started hitting on her. She declined his advances- she always had but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He…um…he tried to get physical with her when he was not able to get his way through words. And the moment I saw what was happening, I lost all control. I was completely overpowered by the thought of my friend being hurt by that monster. The nearest thing to a weapon that I could find was a brick and without a second thought I went for this head.”  
You didn’t realise how tightly one of your hand was holding on to your arm, nearly cutting the blood supply. Bucky didn’t move from where he sat, patiently waiting for you take it all out, restraining himself from wiping away your tears.  
“We ran,” your voice cracked, “we ran so fast, Bucky. I thought I’d killed someone. And every time I think about it I really wish he was dead because it got worse.”  
Bucky saw a distant darkness in your eyes; the familiar darkness he would often find himself staring at when he looked in a mirror.  
“I’d left my friend outside her house and despite her constant warnings to not go home alone, I left. I was ten feet away from the supposedly safest place when I was grabbed by someone from behind me.”  
Bucky gulped as yesterday’s memories came flooding back. “I was gagged and thrown into a car by four of boys- that same guy, and his three friends. I was tied to a chair in someone’s garage. My clothes were torn off bit by bit as they dowsed me alcohol and my skin was bruised with punches. The only thing left for them to do was to soil me. And they were getting to it.”  
Your hands trembled as they wiped away the tears to clear your vision. “I’d found a window when they’d tried to untie me. And I used every last drop of the adrenaline in me to escape them. In doing so I hurt two of them and that monster tried to end me there and then. But the knife that was aimed right into the back of my chest slipped just the right amount for me to survive. I ran home. It was the only safe place knew. I was covered in blood with barely anything covering me up. I reached there and told my parents everything. I was taken to the hospital. They called up that fucker’s parents and heard an entirely different story from his side. They said I had had alcohol with some shady people outside the school and had turned violent when that boy and his friends tried to _help_ me. And guess who’s words did they take-did everyone take- in the end.”  
“The girl I’d tried to protect, she never came forward with the truth. I don’t blame her. I really don’t. I was…I was…it was over. It took me a year just to make myself function like a human again. And a year later I left everything; everyone I knew. I learned to defend myself and took odd jobs until I got into college. Then I left the continent, travelling around the world before finally settling here.”  
The silence surrounding the two of you grew a bit lighter as the heaviness finally eroded from your chest. It felt wonderful to get it all out. Suddenly you did not know how you’d kept so much inside you all this time.  
“So, yes,” you announced as you finally looked at Bucky, “my definition of worse might not be your definition of worse but we can both agree that you aren’t willingly putting anyone in harm’s way. You may have been…something different once but you certainly have the look of someone who’s every little action, right now in this very moment, is performed with the thought of not hurting anyone.”  
If he wanted to, Bucky could not have put it into better words for you.  
“I don’t even know what I am anymore.” He finally responded.  
You smiled and shrugged your shoulders, making Bucky feel that unknown feeling grow warm inside him.  
“Well, you are Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes. So that’s a start. And we’ll figure out the rest.”  
 _We’ll figure out the rest._  
A smile found its way over Bucky’s lips, making you melt on the inside, wishing you got to see more of this when the sun came up.  
“Come put your head here,” you softly patted the pillow next to you, “let’s make sure you get some sleep without any nightmares.”  
Bucky couldn’t help himself as the enthusiasm in your voice made him get up and plant his head next to where you were sitting. You positioned yourself behind him so that your hands went up into his hair, reaching for his scalp, making them put the force at the most sensitive points before releasing your fingers, allowing his head feel a new level of relaxation.  
You heard him exhale the tension through his nose as you pressed and released his pressure points, making you smile with pure joy bubbling in your heart.  
 _I’m almost making an ex-assassin- who looks like an eclair- moan_ , you thought to yourself. _Never thought I would say that._  
And within minutes both of you were lost in weary unconsciousness. Your hands lay by the side of Bucky’s head while you nodded off half sitting by the headboard. Bucky turned in his sleep, almost waking up as he felt your hands under him. The first sun rays were peeking through the window over your face. Giving you a once-over through his sleepy eyes, he gently dragged you down onto the pillow next to him and covered you in his blanket before turning his side towards you to block as much of the sunlight as he could. The radiating warmth drew you closer to his chest, making his sleepy self instinctively wrap his hand around you.  
It was the first time in a long while when you both experienced sound sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

“Hmm-lo?”  
“Where the hell are you?”  
“Mm…hmm?”  
“Y/N…are coming to work today?”  
You tried your best to open your eyes so you could look at the time before giving up.  
“What time is it?”  
“…”  
“…”  
“Wow. It’s ten-thirty in the freaking morning.”  
You’re already late.  
“No. ’M not coming.”  
“…Y/N. What’s going on?”  
“Hmmmm? Lemme sleep.”  
“Is that guy James still there?”

“…”  
“Oh my God! He is there!”  
“…”  
“Who is he? A date? An old friend? Oh! Oh! An ex?”  
Sigh.  
“Did you guys do it? Is that why you can’t get out of the bed? Damn! That must be some wild se-”  
You cut the call and turned the phone on silent before putting it back on the side table next to your glasses.  
Trying to position your head onto the pillow, you felt the coolness of the metal arm on the back of your neck, reminding you of the appreciable presence of the man in bed with you.  
 _Bucky_  
Your mind echoed, as it felt so light and drifty this morning. Your head was finally breathing- taking in the sounds of the birds chirping outside, kids playing in the street, the cars passing by, your neighbour calling for her pinscher who was barking at the cats because she wanted to play with them. You could feel your existence imbibe it, soaking in all of it through your heightened senses.  
You turned yourself to him, finally opening your eyes to welcome the sight of a tender face partially shrouded by obsidian strands burning in the bright sunlight oozing through the window. Oh, you couldn’t miss this. Carefully picking up your glasses from the table, you put them on and took in the visage that you’d seen up close in the dim lights last night.  
His flesh hand lay across your waist on top of the blanket warmly. His arm and chest rose and dived back leisurely. Your borrowed t-shirt tugged back, exposing the nape of his neck. The scratch that Panther had marked him with was gone as if it was never there. His growing stubble impressed upon and around his jawline, making you unravel such scandalous thoughts from some dark and dusty corner in your mind. Only this time, you didn’t use much force to shove them back where they came from. The soft snores coming out of his parted lips made the strings inside your chest twist up and release every tiny bit of stress that was still contained in your body. If a third person stood there and watched him like this, they would never guess that such soft rugged perfection could be a well-oiled death machine.  
 _All my life I’ve been avoiding demons and danger lurking in the shape of humans. Never thought I’d be lying down in bed with someone who’d experienced being one of the kind. Life, what have you done to me?_  
You savoured the peace glowing on the face next to you before you gathered your will to get up and out of bed.

Your task list was a simple one today- New pair of clothing for Bucky, a few essentials like a shaving kit, a pair of good quality gloves and groceries for two.  
You added a burner phone to the list as you reached the local super-store.  
You were frustrated, but not surprised. The men’s section for clothes was so simple to work with. Within ten minutes you were done and it had cost you half the money it would have for the same things for yourself. You had picked out a charcoal coloured jacket, that was brown on the inside- just like the one Bucky owned- two T-shirts,  a warm wine coloured one with buttons down the top and a thinner deep grey one, two jeans in grey and deep blue, and black gloves. You made a mental note to shop in the men’s section for yourself next time.  
The lady behind the cash register looked at you as you brought out the items from your cart and placed them on the platform to be scanned. You looked at her with a light smile, growing uncomfortable from her constant staring. You turned towards the TV behind her, trying to focus your attention on the news on something about Sokovia Accords, the Avengers and a related conference in Vienna that was to start at noon. You tried to focus on the news but the judgment stare brought you back to the woman in front of you.  
She said something in the local language, still not looking away from you as she started scanning the tags. You responded by begging her pardon, only catching up the common words.  
“She’s asking about the bruise on your cheek,” the lady behind you acknowledged.  
You had forgotten about the bruise altogether, cursing yourself for not seeing the mirror before leaving your house, suddenly growing conscious.  
“Oh! This happened when I was playing rugby yesterday. I’m on my college team.”  
 _God, either you better start working on your lies or stop being such a careless fool when it comes to yourself._  
The lady behind you raised her brows- both in surprise and admiration- as she translated your words for the woman behind the counter. The latter waved her hand in disgust as she went back to speaking something more alien to your ears while scanning your items, pushing and throwing them in the direction of the bag boy. You looked back at the translator lady, who nearly spat something back at the cashier lady, making her gasp with wide eyes as her wrinkled hands rested on her chest. You were even more puzzled than before.  
“She said rugby is not a sport for women. That you better keep your pretty face intact if you want a man to marry you.”  
You nearly felt your head tilt back in surprise. “What did you tell her?” You were quite eager to know. “That our cashier must be single then,” the lady winked at you with a smile.

You were still smiling at that burn the woman in the aisle had thrown at the cashier lady as you picked up the last bit of fresh groceries from the vendors on the street, finding it hard to stay serious as you bargained the price of the mushrooms and onions with the man who was clearly taking advantage of you not being able to speak as fluently as him. You nearly gave up when a familiar voice came from behind you and changed the vendor’s attitude, forcing you to turn around.  
“You know Romanian?”  
It was more of an amazement at your own ears than at the fact that Bucky was so fluent in it.  
He gave you a thin lined smile as he nodded and took the grocery bags.  
“Huh. What are you doing here?”  
You’d left a note on the fridge that you were going out for groceries, not wanting to wake him up. But here he was, back in his old clothes, allowing yourself to feel grateful to have got him a new pair of everything.  
“I’d gone back to my place.”  
“Why?” You heard your heartbroken voice before coming in terms with what you’d just said.  
Bucky too looked at you with a light shade of wonder in his eyes, not knowing what he was supposed to answer.  
 _Great job for putting both you and him in such an awkward position, Y/N._  
“I-I mean considering that we talked about finding out more about you last uhh-last night, it’d be better to work together, don’t you think?”  
 _What garbage of a loophole-filled excuse was that?_  
Bucky stood there for a moment, looking at your eyes hiding the pleading look behind the tattered veil of neutrality.  
“…I’d gone to check my place before…coming back.”

Bucky had gone back to his temporary lodgings. They had been just like he’d left them the day before yesterday. Yellow and red painted walls cracked in places, layers of paint coming off, revealing the whitewash. A worn off sofa sitting in the middle of the room with its back to the open kitchen housing only the necessary utensils. Some windows and doors looking out had been covered with old newspapers while others had primitive curtains in white covering them, letting nothing inside, making everything in the house look a shade duller than it was supposed to. Not even the tube light and lamp helped. There was a mattress on the floor next to the wall opposite the sofa, that was supposedly his bed. Bucky couldn’t help but look at it and think about the sleep he’d been bestowed with last night. The air conditioning, though rarely in a working condition, was right beside his bed and next to a lamp.  
Nothing here even remotely attached him to this place. Nothing except that one emergency backpack that he’d carefully taken out from under the floorboards. Bringing forward his journal, he sat down on the sofa and opened up a fresh page. Taking a deep breath he took out his pen and wrote down:

_Y/N-_  
Trustworthy friend  
Has the most beautiful smile  
Gets herself in dangerous situations  
Will hurt you if she wants to

He chuckled to himself at the last phrase as he ran his hand down his thigh, knowing full well you had the potential to kill someone if you wanted to, but wishing it never came to it. He had looked at the words under your name, already deep in thoughts about last night’s conversation before finally adding

_Protect her at all costs_

Underlining the last sentence, he closed the journal- for good, according to him- and put it inside the bag with another handful of journals carrying ink-stained pages of bloodied memories from the life of the winter soldier before putting it back under the floor, out of any prying eyes.  
Out of the two notebooks lying around- one on the sofa and one on top of the fridge, both carrying notes on the new reality he was getting accustomed to- he had grabbed the former one to take away with him.

“No no no. That one is a burner phone. This one’s a smartphone. It has almost everything inside it,” you pointed out as you showed Bucky how his and your communication devices were worlds apart in technology.  
“Everything?” He asked as he looked at both the devices in either hand, more curious about yours. _Such a nerd_ , you teased yourself.  
“Yup,” you responded, lightly jumping on your feet on watching his enthusiasm, “alarm, calculator, world clock, email, applications that let you message anyone anywhere in the world, call them, see them live, that uhh help you navigate, that lets you play games, listen to music, watch movies, _et cetera_.”  
When you looked back at him, he was smiling, his ears red, at your informative rumbling.  
You felt your cheeks burn on seeing his glittering eyes. Trying to hide the blush under the scarf wrapped around your neck you looked away from him and in front of you on the busy sidewalk leading back to your place.  
Bucky’s eyes kept following you as you moved from his side to his front, your pumped up gate slowing down till it came to a stop. He looked away from and ahead of you to realise how strategically you had put yourself between him and the figure that stood ahead.  
“Hi Kalisha,” you marked your voice with enthusiasm but your smile was a genuine one.  
“Hey Y/N,” Kalisha greeted you back, never even throwing as much as a forced smile at Bucky, “no work today?”  
“Yeah,” you exclaimed softly, “I wasn’t feeling really good so I decided to take the day off.”  
You had felt Bucky stiffen behind you, making you hurl curses at yourself if you were about to get him in some direct or indirect trouble with the law. You were wishing- praying to the unseen force- that the green eyes would not question the man behind you, knowing it might not end well for him.  
“What happened to your cheek?”  
 _Oh for fuck’s sake!_  
“I was groped yesterday. This happened when I tried to break free.”  
Your heart relaxed a little thinking you had technically told the truth but only half of the entire incident.  
You could see a wave of nervousness wash over Kalisha’s expression.  
“What? Did you report this? Forget that, why didn’t you tell _me_ yesterday?”  
You looked at your friend, almost guilty for not telling her the things that had gone down. “I don’t know who it was. I was grabbed from behind. And that man ran away when my friend came to my rescue so he didn’t get a good look at him either.”  
Kalisha saw you point at your ‘friend’, her expression almost softening up a little.  
“Are you sure you’re alright?”  
You couldn’t help yourself and let out a lungful of breath. “Yes! Yes, I am fine. And if it weren’t for James I’d be…n-not fine. I’m good. It’s all good.”  
Kalisha was surprised at the edge in your voice, almost hurt before realising the reason.  
“Oh, God. This wasn’t your first time, was it?” Her eyes searching for the some locked up pain in yours.  
“No,” you answered icily, keeping your voice from trembling, choosing not to look in Kalisha’s eyes. You took a step to the side and started walking away, towards your destination.  
Kalisha sensed she had just been given a cold shoulder and reluctantly turned to Bucky, who was worried about losing you in the crowd. “Take care of her.”  
“Yes ma'am,” Bucky nodded from under his cap as he quickly made way towards your dissipating figure.  
Kalisha watched both of you disappear before something in her pocket vibrated. She took out the sleek black phone and looked at a message waiting for her on screen. Her eyes went wide at what she saw, her unemotional stature crumbling for a few moments, trying to register what she’d just seen. Her shaking fingers swiped away on her phone, making everything around her come to a standstill. Something in her head ticked off, forcing her body language to change. Her green eyes, that had momentarily lost their light, were now filled with rage. Pure animalistic rage.

“I’m sorry,” you blurted out just as you entered the apartment building, “I never meant to put you in a tight spot.”  
“It’s f-”  
“There you are!”  
Kline interrupted Bucky, watching him closely as he came over to the two of you. “My place. Now.”  
He turned to the elevator without as much as a second glance in your direction. Bucky leaned towards you. “What is g-”  
“He knows.”

You and Bucky were seated next to other on the lush dining table in the brightly lit room of your landlords. Kline and Michael stood at the front of the table with such opposite demeanours. Michael’s brown eyes gazing at the two of you in observation while Kline’s grey looked down with judgment. The former finally exhaled, taking off his glasses and moving his fingers through his tiny white hairs standing in deep contrast over his head. You knew it wasn’t the time for this but you couldn’t help but admire the husbands being such polar opposites of each other not only in their personalities but also their physicality- Michael being the one with a good built and a proud belly fat while Kline being the thin one though perfectly fit.  
“Y/N, how long have you known your friend, James Barnes.” Kline was in full interrogation mode.  
“Long enough. What is th-”  
“Where did you meet him?”  
“…here. What is going on? Michael?”  
Kline looked at you in what looked like disbelief. “Really, Y/N? I cannot believe you of all people would do this.”  
“Do what?”  
Michael finally broke his silence, “Oh for God’s sake, Gordon. She’s clearly defending him. Here,” he opened a manila file showing everything there was about Sargent James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th Infantry Regiment, assigned in 1942, captured by Hydra, Prisoner of War turned Howling Commando, presumed dead, officially listed as MIA as his body was never found.  
Your throat felt a tiny gasp go down as you turned the pages towards Bucky.  
“Bucky, look! It’s all here!”  
Kline could not believe his eyes and ears.  
“You knew?!”  
You got up from your chair, clearly offending Kline as your figure blocked Bucky, who was not able to take his eyes away from the file.  
“Yes, I did.”  
“Give me a bloody good reason for not telling me you had a 100-year-old man in your apartment this whole time.”  
You moved your arms forward, hands pointed towards everything in front of you.  
“This. Because of what’s happening right now.”  
“Don’t try to act smart with me young lady. I-”  
“Gordon, please calm down. Just hear her out,” Michael asked softly, pinching the bridge of his nose.  
“Calm down? A phantom of a former soldier is staying under our roof. How am I supposed to calm down?”  
“Mr Kline he’s not a-a phantom. Yes, he’s the same person as the file mentions but he’s not some-”  
“Is he one of those super soldiers?”  
“Mr Kline please listen to me.”  
“What if he’s dangerous?”  
Kline nearly jumped as Bucky dragged his chair back to get up. You drew out your arms in both directions to calm them down- rather calm yourself down.  
“No, he’s not.”  
“How would you know?”  
“Believe me, Gordon, I know.”  
“How can you be so calm and contained about it Y/N? H-”  
“I am trying, believe me, I’m trying.” Your voice was going over the edge again. Michael noticed the irritation and called out to his husband to simmer down, only igniting the fire further.  
“He’s supposed to be dead.”  
“Well, SO WAS I!” Your voice echoed throughout the house, forcing everyone to recoil and silence all the sounds around you.  
“I would have been dead right next to your goddamn house last night if it hadn’t been for this guy. Hell, I would have been dead the night before too if it weren’t for him!” You shouted through your tears.  
“I stabbed him, right here, in his thigh. And you know what he did? He gifted me a fucking knife to defend myself.”  
You took out the knife from your jacket and showed them to the dumbfound couple.  
“It’s even better than the one I stabbed him with, you know. And this,” you put the knife on the table with a bang as you pointed at your pounding cheek before hoisting up your jacket to reveal the marks on your wrists, “this was what I was going through. This was only the beginning of the torture that had been planned for me. I shit you not I prayed that I was dead before that because I was done that night. I was finished. I was exhausted till here, till my throat. Not just because of the torture, okay? Because of every damn thing that had ever happened in my life that led to that.”  
Your hands trembled. So did your body, barely standing. Wiping away your tears, you gathered as much of a backbone as you could before you cleared your throat.  
“If it hadn’t been for him, I would not be here in any shape or form except a corpse waiting to be identified. Keep that in mind the next time you try to do something that may compromise _him_ in any shape or form.”  
Picking up the knife and your recently bought items and groceries, you took Bucky’s hand and left the apartment. No words were exchanged on the way up to the elevator. Bucky silently took half the burden from you watching you all the time, carefully observing every change in your expression.  
You mechanically moved out of the elevator to open the door to your place, switch on the lights and dumped the bags on the sofa to head straight to the kitchen.  
Bucky carefully closed the door with his back and brought the groceries to you, watching you cover the nascent night outside the windows with curtains. His eyes followed you to your room as you dumped your jacket on the chair and came back to him in the kitchen.  
“I’m making mushrooms for dinner, is that alright?”  
He saw your cursory movements take out pots and pans from the drawer before he finally took your arms in his soft hold.  
“Hey.” His crooning voice sent shivers down your voice, forcing you to finally give in to his touch.  
You turned towards him to look at his beautiful face, trying your best not to forget breathing before your impulse took over every muscle inside you granting your arms permission to wrap them around his torso. Half afraid he might pull away, you were about to move a step back when his arms brought you back closer to him, embracing you as tightly as he thought was humanly possible. You stood there for an elongated moment before coming out of each other’s embrace.  
Bucky’s fingers came by the side of your face, gently moving your hair away to let him breathe in the wondrous obscurity that was you. His touch ignited an ember somewhere inside your body, your eyes bleeding with a newfound emotion. When you looked back at him, you saw his doing the same.  
Your hand found itself beside his face too, moving away his dark strands to drown in his transparent tenderness.  
Bucky’s face inched a little towards you, looking into your eyes for permission. You tilted your head up too, answering his questions. Your breath mingled with his for a moment as your mouths came closer. It took a light brush of the lips to let you both recognize that the embers were really a full-blown fire waiting to be started- _wanting_ to be started. And without another moment’s hesitation, they gingerly crashed into each other, added the first drops of the fuel that was going to burn down the house tonight.

* * *

Across the city, a door clicked open to a familiar place. Bucky’s place. A figure crept inside without any sound and automatically went about the house looking for something, never disturbing the placement of things. The figure picked up the notebook from under two packs of cheap biscuits and flashed a light over the pages that contained a picture of Captain America and a whole lot of information about him. But what caught the eyes was the partial piece about James B. Barnes and a question mark next to it. Putting the journal back as it were, the figure took out a phone from its jacket and moved towards the window to look out at the full moon glowing in the night sky.  
“General, it is me.”  
The green pair of orbs glistened under the moonlight. “I have confirmation on the target. The Americans have the correct information. The winter soldier is here.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is smut. Pure smut.

The kiss.  
It all started with the kiss.  
A tender touch of pulsating lips made the world around you and Bucky come to a standstill. The intimate moment brought down that unspoken mask worn by fragility inside the both of you, sending a pulverising glow down your bodies from where you were connected. Your eyes were closed, savouring every second of the touch of Bucky’s lips on yours, never wanting for it to end.  
And when it did, it left you in such delicious daze, making it hard to come back and let your gaze focus on the present.   
Bucky didn’t let go of your face, his flesh hand still holding your side as he looked at you with his radiating blue eyes. His touch was sending all the right tremors down your body making you wish for more; so much more. But you had to be sure he wanted the same.  
Your fingers lightly ran over his jaw, feeling the hard hair under your tips, wondering where to go from here, having no idea what that feather-like caress was doing to him. All the aching shards of his being were one by one dissolving under your fingers.  
“Y/N,” he whispered, bringing his forehead to yours. all his strength that was being used to keep those pieces together, was now put in that one name. Your name.  
“Yes,” your breathlessness responded. “Yes,” you said again, making sure he heard you.  
“Do you want to…?” His heavy whisper clouded the air around you. You were quite sure your glasses were fogging up- and not just because of your vision going blurry with his insanely mesmerising touch- with the heat rising up both inside and around you.  
“Yes, as long as you want it too,” you heard yourself speak.  
“Yes. God, yes.”  
That’s all you both wanted to hear before the aching lips came back for more, this time with more passion and need.  
Your hands found their way around his jaw and neck, wanting to take in every inch of his rough, bare skin. His metal found its way to your back, bringing you closer to him, your bodies pining to be joined. Your tongue tasted his sweet and salty lips, begging for more. And more you got. His tongue took over you, marking you as his, everywhere inside you, forcing you to inch your hips closer to him and feel the burning fieriness in his core over your stomach. You could not believe that your touch was doing this to him.  
Bucky felt the surging fire inside you too. He inched his body closer, driving your back into the kitchen counter.  
You parted for breaths, your lips swollen and pumping with the hard love they’d just received.  
Bucky did not waste any time as he grabbed your thighs-without much effort- and hoisted you up on the counter to come face to face with him.  
The first tender attack on your neck did it for you. A lust filled moan left your throat, affirming your sensitive spots to Bucky, making his teeth go for them before planting wet kisses to comfort the beautiful ache that lingered later on.  
You could not control the knots rising inside you at his impact all over your neck and jaw. Your hands wandered on his chest, going for his jacket, getting some help from him as he pushed it away from his arms, never breaking contact with your skin. Next came the t-shirts. Your hands were working on their own as your head tilted back to give him access to your shoulders. You finally found the hem of his shirt and lifted it up feel his bare chest under your touch.  
Bucky shuddered under your fingers, drawing himself away from you. His eyes were darker now; a hunger lurking beneath the blue.  
 _What have I done?_  
He lifted his shirt from his back, baring his chiselled form- with a metal arm engraved into his side- no less perfect than a God, to you. He threw away his shirt on the floor as his dusky blue rings looked at you with that hunger now coming over to the surface, fiercer than before.  
You planted your index fingers right over his belt and inched him closer to you. Your teeth teased while your tongue devoured the sensitive skin on the nape of his neck right to the back of his ears. A low growl left his throat just as you teeth tugged the skin under his ear while your hands travelled to his lower back.  
Bucky felt himself losing his restraints one by one. For once he was ecstatic to give someone else control, riding the sensations you were sending through him right now. He had seen the beast inside you, lurking in the Y/E/C oceans that were your eyes, happy to make it come out and play.  
Within seconds you were out of your shirt, allowing Bucky to continue with a trail of wet kisses from your collar to the top of your breasts. His metal went back and unhooked your bra while his tongue and fingers took the sweet opportunity to tease the nipples, the reverberations sounding till your wet core.  
Your legs wound themselves around his for support as your back arched at the sweet quivers. Your hands, thirsty for more, undid his belt and zipper and let his member free from the denim constraints around them, all hard and ready. A satisfactory moan left Bucky’s lips over your breasts. You took his length in your hands and gave it one teasing stroke, driving him into further madness and he arched closer to you, allowing you to access his entirety in your hands.   
He made work of the zipper on your jeans an picked you up in his arm like you weighed nothing, and pushed them down your thighs along with your panties, letting your legs do the rest.  
Pushing you close to him, he allowed your wet core to feel his hard member at the entrance of the folds, sending a hot rush down your spine, while he lifted you up from the counter. His tongue came back for your lips and mouth as your legs now moved over to his hips, securing themselves around him when he lifted you up, feeling his throbbing length over your aroused bundle of nerves, making you moan right in Bucky’s mouth on every movement of your hip that sent sparks down around your clit.  
Before you could make sense of Bucky’s movements, he was making you sit on his thighs as you felt the headboard of your bed hit the back of your head.  
“Are you alright?” His deep blues looked at you, worried, placing his flesh hand behind your head. Even when his intention was to devour you whole, he was worried about hurting you.  
“Never better,” you confessed, giving him your best smile, melting all his concerns away. He placed his hands over your hips as you let his member find its way into you, filling you up. Your heavy moans and his low grunts filled the atmosphere as he let your walls adjust to his girth. You could already feel him throbbing inside of you, waiting and wanting. You moved your hips, signalling Bucky to move out of you before coming back hard, driving all the air out of your lungs. Your hands went around his torso to his back, fingers digging into his skins as he drove into you again, making you move up against the headboard behind you. Creating a steady rhythm, he moved his hips in sync with yours, finding just the spot to hit. Your nails dug down lower around his ass, making him go deeper into you letting a moan escape his throat right into your neck.   
“Bucky,” your tight cry came out right near his ear as he drove you up further, the tide rising inside your core.  
And like a magic word, he knew what you commanded, as he laid you on your back at the foot of your bed and raised your legs over his shoulders, sending you to an entirely new, undiscovered high.  
The tides inside your core came closer to the shore. Bucky saw you clench your sheets as your head almost went down the edge of the bed while your brows furrowed, letting him know you were close. So close.  
“Bucky!” another uncontrollable whine left you as your walls started clenching around him.  
He increased his pace- the slick sound of his cock against your walls filling the air along with his feral growls- while his fingers travelled down your stomach to your swollen clit to help you find your release. The walls clenched around his cock further when he rubbed circles around your swollen bundle of nerves, making him increase his pace as came closer to his own orgasm. Just when his movements started to get sloppy, your tides came over the brim, spilling the juices while making your legs shudder. Bucky rode you through your orgasm, driving your body through every reverberation as he found his own release, spilling inside you while he suppressed his grunts in your shoulder, biting down hard and sending you an extra mile in your passing wave.  
Heavy breaths filled the silent cold air.  
Beads of sweat trickled down his face and hair on to yours as he shifted his arms down by the side of your breathless face to plant one soft lingering kiss on your lips. Parting, he paused above you for a moment.  
“I…uhh…will you be alright?”  
You weren’t able to make out the meaning of his hesitation filled words and concerned eyes until it dawned upon you.  
“Oh! Yes. I’m on my pills right now. I’ll be fine,” you whispered assuringly.  
Bucky nodded at the confirmation as he pulled himself away from you, carefully pulling out- leaving an aching pleasure behind- and going to the bathroom. You laid there on your bed, still shivering from the bliss from two minutes ago. He came back with a wet towel and cleaned you up before helping you sit up to massage your shoulders with his contrasting pair making you feel equally wonderful.  
“You alright?” You asked, your eyelids drooping a little thanks to the bonus massage that got rid of any upcoming cramps in your shoulder, as he switched off all lights and came back for you.  
Bucky helped you lay down, planting a pillow carefully under your head. His familiar scent emanating from the pillow took you further towards the Bucky-laden slumber. You felt him lie down beside you, your back to his front. His eyes sparkled like a clear ocean reflecting the white sand on its ocean floor in the full moon night. He watched you move a little, perking up his head to see what caused it when he felt your hand wrap around his metal arms under the blanket and bring it around your form for him to hold you close. And so he did, moving closer to you, keeping your already-cold body warm with his under the blanket.  
“You didn’t answer my question Bucky,” you mentioned with a yawn.  
Bucky took in a lungful of air as a smile crept over his lips. He moved your hair away from the back of your shoulders and planted a kiss right on your skin, making you smile into your pillow.  
“Never better,” he finally whispered.


	8. Chapter 8

Was it a dream?  
 _I hope not._  
Then was it a passing thought?  
 _This beautiful and animalistic? No way._  
You opened your eyes before the morning sun, to find yourself slightly aching with the memories of last night. You couldn’t resist the smile. _So it was real. All of it._  
Your legs were entangled in Bucky’s, his redolent body heat keeping you more than just warm. Your head rested on his flesh arms, close to his rhythm-filled chest. His metal was settled on your back, keeping you as close to him as possible, your breasts feeling his chest inhale and exhale. Your hands found themselves delicately grazing the scars where his flesh ended and the metal began, sending a spark down his body and waking him up.  
“Sorry,” you whispered, removing your hand from his conjunction and placing them on your lips with uncertainty.  
Bucky’s blue was deep in the nascent morning that hadn’t even risen up yet. You could see his pupils dilate as he completely woke up from his sleep and breathed your form in.  
He smiled his best smile on seeing your face right next to his, smoothly pushing your wild bed hair away from your face to plant his lips on your forehead. The touch originated a wave of pure light and radiated throughout your body, making you glow on the inside.  
Your lips found his jaw and neck, planting sweet pecks, that grew into wet kisses, which grew into gentle nibs all over his shoulders.  
 _Two days. Two days and now you just couldn’t get enough of him._  
Bucky’s metal picked you up and placed you over his hips, wanting more. His hands travelled all over your body as your lips came down to his chest, the muscles tight and ripped, shivering under your touch. Your hand travelled down his stomach to tease his member, making the man under you moan and grow hard under your touch. You wrapped your fingers around his length and smeared the precum over his tip. Your cold fingers over the crown made his body covet for more. Within no time you were making him grunt in pleasure, your tongue and mouth finding all the right sensitive spots that were driving his hips up. His hands found your hair, moving them back and pressing lightly into the morning mess, trying to find an anchor till he found his release.  
When he found his breathing back, he got up and pushed you towards the edge of the bed by your leg, making you shriek and fall on your back over the blanket.  
He sat down on the floor, spreading your legs and planting soft kisses on your inner thighs, making you giggle with excitement. “You don’t have to do that.”  
He looked back at you. “But I want to,” he declared before his tongue instantly found your sensitive bundle of nerves, driving you back to the land of all things that were pleasure in the name of Bucky.  
He really did want to do it, making you come twice just as the sun rose up.

“It looks good on you,” you complimented Bucky as he came out of your room, covered in the grey t-shirt, red sweater, charcoal jacket and grey jeans- the ensemble you’d bought for him yesterday. “Thanks,” he grinned as he sat down for breakfast.  
“I’ll be back by five. I’ve put my number in your phone,” hummed as you checked yourself in front of the mirror, trying to hide the purple and green marks of last night’s love-making under your scarf.  
 _I really hope Gina doesn’t see that._  
The bruise on your cheek was nearly gone, nothing that a little makeup couldn’t fix.  
“Okay. I’ll go ask my boss if he’d let me work a shift at the new site today,” Bucky responded. He got up from the table and placed his mess free plate in the sink to wash it. “Can I get you anything, doll?”  
You looked at Bucky mechanically washing the dishes and smiled with radiating heat. _Doll_. You never liked the sound of that but now it was music to your ears.  
Also, this was probably the longest non-reluctant conversation he’d had from his side with you. With anyone for that matter.  
“No. I’m good,” you breathed in, trying to normalise your inhale and exhale process in his presence.  
Bucky put the dishes in the rack to dry when he turned to you with a keen look in his eyes.  
“Would you like some plums?”  
You thought the question had come out of nowhere as you turned to him, standing in your kitchen, his flesh hand resting over his metal, both resting over the counter. It took a moment for you to realise what the real query was.  
“Sure. We’ll make some plum pasta tonight.”  
His debut big toothed smile told you you were right while taking all the air out of your lungs.  
You picked up your bag, ready to watch the reruns of last night and today’s dawn in your mind for the rest of the day, and took a step towards the door before you stopped. Something inside you made you turn around and walk towards him. This tiny sensation somewhere within you made you take his face in your palms and plant one deep kiss on his lips, making Bucky go red all over. You wished him goodbye and exited the apartment, that sensation still slithering around somewhere in your gut. Ignoring the stupid sensations, you walked out with the resolve to work without losing focus. _Well, easier said than done, doll._

“Hot damn! Look at you!”  
Gina gave the most uncomfortable once over ever as she took your arm and walked towards your destination.  
“Sex does look good on you, Y/N. You are glowing.”  
You elbowed her, trying your best to hide your blush and failing. _Hard_.  
“Gina st-”  
“So who is this James,” she moaned near your ear, putting an arm around you.  
“Its-he’s a friend,” you finally found the courage to speak.  
“Friend as i-”  
“No! Not that kind of…he’s more than a friend.”  
Gina didn’t speak anything more, her eyes reading your face quite intently.  
“Is he a nice a person?”  
You turned to her with a confused look. “Yes. He is a very nice person in his heart. I am quite sure of that.”  
You saw Gina loosen her shoulders a little, her curls bouncing as her head moved in approval. “Good. That’s good. Because I’ve never seen you like this before. Like you are finally grateful to be alive.”

Gina words had still been ringing in your ears when you’d gathered for lunch in the restaurant opposite the library. They had still been running when the television by the bar had caught your attention; when the news of the attack at the Conference regarding the Sokovia Accords filled the thin air around you; when a somewhat familiar silhouette had been described as the attacker on TV; when it was named as the Winter Soldier. The ringing turned into a shriek as you ran down the street to grab your belongings and hail a taxi; when you got down in front of your apartment. It turned into a reckless drumming when you ran past Kline and Michael and took the elevator to your floor, finally turning into white noise as you opened your door to an empty apartment with no sign of the man named James Buchanan Barnes anywhere except in his old clothes that still lay in your laundry basket.

All Bucky had wanted was some plums to take home- your home- before he saw the first watchful gaze from across the street. The alarms that used to go off in his head every day, had started ringing again on seeing the newspapers detailing his description for the man behind a blast in Vienna. The attack had happened yesterday. This could only mean one thing- his window to escape had been narrowed to about fifteen minutes. He to change his base, his location, hell, the entire country. But whatever he thought of, one thing was sure- he could not see Y/N again. Not any time soon.  
Within seconds, his day had taken a turn for the worst. Captured, controlled, freed, his journals lost to the people who wanted to capture him again, there had been many a time when he had almost slipped your name to Steve. Oh, the times he’d wanted to curse all things named Panther in this world for coming after his life.  
He could only think of the worst these people could do to you- even though you had no part in his life two days ago. When he’d seen his best friend have a chance at love, his mind went back to you, your smile, your laugh, your rage, your love.

But he finally broke down. He broke when he watched his former self kill the people that were supposed to be close to him once; that were family to your best friend’s comrade. He broke as he saw two figures shatter themselves of their identities for his deeds. He cried at the pieces of his beginning and his end while wanting to find a way back into the safety of your arms. But he couldn’t.

You had no idea how long you’d stood in the hollow apartment that was supposed to be your home. Seconds, minutes, hours, lifetimes- it all went by you, silently watching you, hearing the sounds of cracks developing on the inside. You never heard Kline, Michael or Gina enter the apartment, neither did you hear your friend’s soft begging to tell her what was going on.  
“You’re strong, Y/N. Get yourself together,” Kline whispered near you, “He had to go eventually.”  
 _That_ you definitely heard.  
Your nails dug into the sweaty skin of your palms for a good second as you looked at the floor, trying to gather your voice.  
“Who did you tell?”  
Your voice was clear as the crystal chandelier that hung in Kline’s home above his head in the dining room.  
“Y/N, honey-”  
Kline raised his hand to touch your shoulder but you retreated away from his incoming touch.  
“Who did you tell?” Your monotonous tone repeated.  
Gina could not make out what the conversation was about exactly but she could see Kline retrieve from a zone you had created around you, almost scaring him away.  
“An old friend in the US army,” Michael finally confessed, not caring for the daggers his husband’s cold gaze threw at him.  
You finally turned to look at Kline when your eyes fell on another figure at the door.  
For a moment you thought it was a lie- the emotion that you were seeing in the green eyes in front of you. But the moment ended. So did your belief. A laugh escaped your lips.  
“Who did _you_ tell?”  
Everyone else turned to the door to see Kalisha walk in.  
“None of your concern,” she simply stated.  
“Well, at least one of you is straightforward.”

“I said would you like soda?”  
“What flavour?”  
“We have plum and berry, miss.”  
You looked at the flight attendant as if he’d been sent down personally by the force to rub it in your face.  
“The plum one, please.” You spat back, making the attendant look at you with pure judgment in his eyes.  
The fizziness ran down your tongue and teased your throat as you looked out at the dark sky bringing out the lights beneath you like a party within a small ant colony.  
“So where are you going, dearie?” The old woman sitting next to you asked.  
You looked at the flickering pieces creating a wave towards some city beneath you, sitting between mountains like a cluster of fireflies.  
“I don’t know.”  
The thin curves of the highways spelling out a letter for you, again and again.  
“Well, are you heading home?”  
The mountains carried the floodlights like a thin strand of hair, burning and beaming.  
“No. I don’t really have a place to call home anymore.”  
A single drop of light somewhere in the mountains, like the mole standing out on his back.  
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Do you have any family? Friends?”  
“…I don’t know.”  
A circle of a lake shining blue under the floodlights with the centre housing something round and dark.

A vision. Blurry

“I don’t know anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah...so that happened.


	9. Chapter 9

“Are you sure about this?”

The glass walls of the Quinjet let the sun rays flood in everywhere, lighting up not only the interiors of the astounding Wakandan technology but the innocent eyes of the men who had not seen the beauty of the African lands that unfolded in front of them. The mountains were waking up to the morning winds that washed the misty clouds away, the grassland was being painted a pleasant hue under the new light, the animals were being drawn through the natural crevices of young hills and the forests were bleeding in bright greens with the first unfiltered golden streaks.  
Steve and Bucky stood in awe as the layers of nature’s untouched artistry unfolded with every brighter minute in front of their eyes.  
The Quinjet was headed straight for a range with its occupants when Bucky had raised the question. He had been too busy looking at the incoming mountain generously covered in green to notice the smirks on the faces of the royalty- and his personal bodyguard cum pilot- he and his best friend were travelling with.  
For a moment he thought the worst, never taking his eyes off the trees, waiting for a collision at any moment, his flesh arm at ready to shield himself from the impact.  
“Welcome to Wakanda,” was all T'Challa said.

Just like that the greens and mountains disappeared, a visage being taken away layer by layer as a whole new scenario stood in front of them.  
A full-fledged city was thriving in here. Buildings, houses and skyscrapers stood over the land with inherent, native allure. Vehicles moved by beneath them, hovering over the roads. Dots beneath them, that were this country’s people, went on with their daily lives, not really moved by something the Brooklyn boys were taking in with pure admiration, as it was their normalcy.  
Steve couldn’t help but turn towards T'Challa with bewilderment written all over his face.  
“I thought you were the Prince of a third world country?”  
T'Challa didn’t even take a breath.  
“And I thought you were the most powerful nation’s face of justice.”  
Bucky stood there basking in the speechlessness of his friend for a moment before Steve nodded his head with an air of ‘touché’.  
The Quinjet touched down at heart of Wakanda, the home of late king T'Chaka, opening the gateway in welcome of the foreign men, who were greeted by a small army of armed women clad in what seemed like a traditional attire of combat for them.  
Just as T'Challa took his first step on the ground, the army greeted him by crossing their arms over their chest, making an 'X’. The woman leading them came forward.  
“My prince.”  
“General.”  
Bucky and Steve could see by her disposition that she indeed had the look and experience of a warrior.  
“Okoye,” T'Challa addressed her before turning towards the men behind him, “I believe you have already familiarised yourself with who Captain Rogers and Sargeant Barnes are.”  
Okoye turned her gaze towards the two men, never shifting from where she stood, “Captain. Sargeant.”  
“Ma'am.” The men said in unison.  
“They are our guests. And Sargeant Barnes is our priority.”  
Okoye nodded. “The medical and technical team are already at the laboratory.”  
For a moment her gaze turned soft.  
“Shuri is waiting for you there.”  
Bucky could feel the air get a little heavy around T'Challa.  
“And mother?” the prince finally added in a low voice.  
“She is preparing for the final rites, my prince. She is expecting you and the princess to join her soon.”  
T'Challa never broke his composure as he took one lasting breath.  
“Take us to her.”

The meeting between the siblings had been a bittersweet affair. Bucky and Steve stood outside the laboratory, allowing the brother and sister to mourn the untimely death of their father in private.  
Steve and Bucky had been allowed to clean themselves of the recent battle at the more than decent quarters provided by the royal family with a change of clothes that was suited to their usual taste. Even though their bodies and wounds were clean of the grime of the inevitable conflict and regret, their minds were still heavy and exhausted by the choices they’d made and broken pieces they’d left behind- both literally and figuratively.  
Steve felt the heavy bruise on the left side of his face with his fingers, trying to measure the depth of the injury.  
His gaze never left Bucky, who shifted his weight on his legs as he took the sight of the advanced technology surrounding him in, making the blonde smile at the familiar awestruck blue eyes before a little wince came out of him.  
Bucky turned to his friend to find him touching his wounds to see where the fresh blood was coming from.  
“Stop it,” he said out of reflex.  
Steve turned towards him with innocent eyes, “'Was just checking how deep the wound went.”  
For a moment Steve thought Bucky had been distracted by something behind him before realising his friend’s gaze went farther than the boundaries of Wakanda because when Bucky turned back to him, his eyes had a distant look as they announced, “don’t touch that,” huskily, making him wonder if Bucky was talking to him or someone else. His doubts were strengthened a bit when Bucky turned away to look outside the glass walls and ran his hand through his hair before closing his eyes to try and focus on a face that seemed like a dream. A good dream. The only dream that mattered.

“Ma'am,” Steve and Bucky greeted the princess, who, according to them, seemed quite young to be heading the entire research and development of a technology so advanced even Tony Stark had not seen, let alone had the chance to work on, in his lifetime.  
The sixteen-year-old smiled at them. “Captain. Sargeant. I see the scientists here helped detach and disintegrate your broken metal on your way here, Sargeant Barnes.”  
Bucky looked at his left side, the metal was gone, no longer weighing down his body like any other time. The only scrap shining through was the remains of the conjunction embodied with his nerves in his shoulder.  
“Yes, ma'am. Thank you for that.”  
“The team would require your blood samples and brain scans. Rest of the diagnosis has already been done when you were coming over. For both of you.”  
“Shuri,” T'Challa closed his eyes, his arms still behind his back.  
“What? You brought these white boys here in my lab. I’m going to be thorough with any and all people I’m fixing up. And their friends too.” Shuri snapped before firmly adding “And don’t _Shuri_ me again. Right now you’re just here to look pretty in front of them.”  
Bucky and Steve’s brows shot up to the sky as they looked at the perfectly confident Shuri sweeping the floor with T'Challa’s exhausted but dumbstruck gaze- unexpected but never not welcoming for these white boys. They stood there, burying the surprise under a sheet of emotionlessness over their features, trying to be as invisible as possible.

“Steve. There is something you need to know.”  
“What is it?”

“…There is something you need to find.“  
"What?”  
“My journals. They have the names, places, experiments, anything and everything that HYDRA did…that I did for them. Find those people and make sure their madness doesn’t get to see the light of the day.” 

Shuri, T'Challa and Okoye had gone away to complete the final rites of the King’s passage, leaving Bucky and Steve in care of the handful of scientists working around them efficiently to ready the cryogenic capsule all the while evaluating the crux of HYDRA’s programming.  
Bucky’s distant look was back. Steve could see a hidden pain behind the still ocean- the tides that ran in the deepest pits, eroding the submerged lands in the darkness but never visible from the surface above. He had seen them before- the waves, though they were not of the same kind, they both were born from the same thing: fear- in the brown eyes of the man he’d come to respect the most recently; the man he left for the dead cold in Siberia.  
A few minutes passed before he spoke again. Steve waited patiently beside him, a slight worry passing over his face.  
“Steve, I need you to find someone.”  
Steve’s worry changed into confusion before taking the face of resolve. Bucky saw the transformation and something somewhere in the back of his mind rang an alarm.  
“Who is it? Who do I have to find?” His burning eyes waited for a name.  
“Steve. No. There is someone you need to find…and make sure she’s safe,” Bucky corrected.  
Every stone cold muscle in Steve’s body melted as he let the words sink in. After a few moments, his lips found this hint of a smile filled with curiosity and relief over them.  
“Is she…are you…did you two…”  
“Please don’t say-”  
“Fondue-d?”  
Bucky groaned before his face turned red and a delicate laugh left his throat. Steve followed.  
“What’s her name?” Steve was genuinely curious to know about this woman.  
“Y/N. Her name is Y/N.” The light illuminating his eyes was hard to miss.  
“Where is she?”  
“In Bucharest.”  
“Not anymore.”  
A figure way too familiar to Bucky entered the lab, altering his soft expressions within seconds.  
“Kalisha.”

After having narrated all that went down after Bucky’s disappearance from your life, the green-eyed Wakandan spy apologised for the inconveniences caused by her actions.  
“But just so you know, Sargeant Barnes, my apology is in no form a regret of any sort of having you deliver to the prince in whatever way necessary.”  
Bucky nodded in agreement. “I understand. Do you know where she is right now?”  
Both Kalisha and Steve could measure the evident concern in Bucky’s eyes and voice, both absorbing it with reasons of opposite polarity that concerned them. “No, I don’t. But I can track her down before she gets herself caught up on the wrong side of things again.” Kalisha’s smaragdine orbs burned with a newfound will. She gathered herself before admitting, “She has always considered me her friend. I would like to return the favour.”  
Bucky’s smile found his way back.  
“But I cannot do this alone.”  
Steve turned his gaze from his friend to Kalisha, “You don’t have to,” he declared.  
“I respect your enthusiasm, Captain, but we would be needing more than just one spy and one people’s hero gone rogue.”  
“I know some people. Good people. But they’re really not in the position to help us unless we help them first.”  
Kalisha smirked at the turn Steve had taken her to. “I know. It’s hard to miss the news of a prison right in the middle of an ocean kept for people with a very specific skill set. I’ll ask the general if we can borrow a Quinjet.”  
“I’ll have a word with his highness.”  
The captain and the spy did a firm shake before he escorted her out of the lab.

“Are you sure about this?” Steve finally asked Bucky as he was being readied for the cryo sleep.  
“I can’t trust my own mind,” he forced out a weak smile before it faded into the air around him, “so until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head, I think going back under is the best thing.”  
“For everybody,” he added.  
Steve heard all the layers of the statement his friend made.

* * *

The monotonous pacing had been disrupted by an unusual silence. The number of guards patrolling the prison cells had grown thin- almost negligible. The pacing came to a stop at the glass encasing the cell as a figure came out of the shadows, bringing a victorious smirk on the prisoner’s face.  
“Took you long enough.” Sam Wilson announced as Steve got him out.

“So where exactly are we going from here, Captain? We can’t really walk back into the country.” Sam questioned, climbing aboard the Quinjet, gladly taking in the inside of aircraft rescuing them. He didn’t miss the unfamiliar green-eyed women piloting it.  
“Barton? Lang?” Steve answered with a question.  
Clint got Wanda out of her restraints, allowing her to finally move her hands and emanate a release of her energy around her.  
“I don’t care. I’m going back to my family. I’d rather disappoint my kids in person right now,” Clint declared.  
“As much as I’d love to go with you, Captain, I’m with Barton on this one.”  
Steve nodded.  
“I’ve contacted Fury. He and Hill have assured me their people will try to take care of this as best possible. And as for the two of you?” he turned towards Wanda and Sam.  
They looked at each other before turning back to Steve.  
“Do we have a mission?” Sam asked, his hands going behind his back.  
“More than one.”  
“Good,” Wanda announced, “when do we start?”  
Steve reciprocated their determination with his.  
“As soon as we get an old friend out of her exile.”  
Clint laughed.  
“She’s already waiting. I can feel her cursing and wondering what’s taking you so long.”


	10. Chapter 10

The numbness after a pounding ache is a curse in disguise of a temporary blessing. In practicality, it is the medicine- the painkillers- that we consume to numb our nerves and not feel the ache anymore; let our bodies be tricked into thinking they are healthy. But inside our fragile mind, it is a state of shutting down all emotions- good, bad, best, ugliest. Everything passes by without being absorbed; without being observed.  
That was what you had experienced _ **,**_ rather, were still experiencing. All the echoes of the city you’d left behind had been put into a box and locked behind a door in some dark corner of your mind which you would often stumble upon by chance, sometimes by fate, but never looked at it twice and moved ahead.  
Two months had passed. The new city around you was a blur, moving faster than you in every aspect. Another library to look after, another neglected bookstore to cater to; you found a job and unreasoningly moved to and fro through the crowd, never bothering to look for a familiar face in the fear of finding something you didn’t want to.  
Your phone would chime still, with texts from Gina that you would read and leave as such.  
 _No more friends_. It was better that way. The numbness made you feel nothing- which you thought was good.  
You didn’t talk; neither to the over friendly colleagues nor the receptionist who tried so hard to get your attention now and then, often asking you out for coffee or lunch only to be politely declined time and again.  
Now, this was the bad side of numbness that you did not see coming. You would find yourself moving in alleyways you had no clue about or streets that did not lead anywhere. Your body would move on its own, pulling you in and out of crowds or pushing unwanted people aside. Even tonight, you ran into four men blocking a woman spewing the most salacious words on her, giving her enough time to find a window and run away as far as possible.   
Your numbness suppressed the flight response as the predators marked you now with the full intention of getting what you had so clumsily made them miss.  
 _I do have a magnet that attracts danger,_ was your only thought, making your brain pound mercilessly, shouting from behind a soundproof glass to look at the gravity of the situation, frantically kicking at the door that had all the emotions shut behind it.  
“Who the hell is Bucky?”

A crack appeared in the wood of the dark door as curiosity peaked out. You turned at the man who spoke the name. His hands held your phone which was lit up with Bucky’s name on the screen. A call.   
Another crack appeared.   
Confusion.  
You moved towards the name, trying to make sure you were not dreaming. You weren’t.  
Surprise punched through the door as you plunged towards the phone but it was drawn away from you, thrown over the concrete to be forcefully disassembled into pieces.  
Pain screamed from behind, pulling the remnants of the frame off the hinges as you lunged towards the man with all your will concentrated in your punches to his jaw and kicks to his crotch.  
The other three men picked you up to lock you in place, their burning rage making them blind to the entities flying towards them from the sky to knock them out, at the same time letting you get back at the man you had been expelling all your outburst over, your already depleted strength using the last bit to get up and go for your phone, or what all was left of it.  
A pair of arms came for you, making the sudden rush spin your elbow around and land a blow on the individual’s nose.  
“Ow! Seriously?”  
You turned around, nearly losing your balance, and faced another stranger who was rubbing his nose and stretching the aching muscles. You almost thought you were dreaming when your eyes settled on his suit and the contraptions on his back.  
His dark skin flawlessly reflected the yellow hues like a perfectly translucent golden layer. He lifted his shades over his eyes to properly feel the damage around the bridge.  
“You and your boyfriend have some serious issues.”  
Boyfriend?  
“Wilson!” Another voice called from your right. It was a woman. Her red tresses burned under the dim yellow glow as she looked at the man in front of her with a hurtful glare. The red coat made her stand out in the entire scene, the street lights not doing justice to her beauty.  
“What? All we’ve seen and heard about them _is_ trouble,” he turned to you and gave you a stern look of disappointment, “and blindly bumping into strangers at night in an unknown city is really not a good idea of keeping yourself safe or even low-key!”  
You were hurt and taken aback at the audacity of this man to lecture you as he did.  
“Says the guy who’s wearing shades past midnight trying to grab a woman from behind without a warning!” You announced.  
His mouth flew open as his eyes looked at you with disbelief.  
“I was trying to hel-”  
“We’re sorry, Y/N,” the red-head cut Wilson in between, “for jumping in like that. We were just trying to help.”  
A silent moment passed between the three of you only filled by some stray dogs barking and the hurt men groaning in the distance.  
“Thank you,” you finally whispered.  
“I’m sorry but,” you added, “how do you know my name? Who are you guys? And why do you seem so familiar?”  
As if to answer your questions, a low roar of a bike came from around the corner, growing a bit louder by the second until it stood in front of you at a decent distance.  
You felt Sam and the woman shift their stances at ease in that person’s presence, the cloud of worry and disappointment being replaced with relief. The roar died at a click and the light went out, taking you a moment’s delay to adjust your eyes to the figure coming towards you from shadows.  
The dim street lamps lit up a pale face- that was way too familiar for you to know he shouldn’t be standing here- covered with a light stubble marking half of his features. The blue eyes shone heavy under the yellow as they stopped in front of you, close enough to see a distant acquaintanceship.  
A tiny gasp left you as a hand came forward.  
“We haven’t met before, Miss Y/N. I’m Steve Rogers.”

 

“I…I don’t see anything.”  
And just as the words left your mouth, the Quinjet appeared before you as if someone had lifted the invisibility cloak from above.  
Steve gestured you to step into the jet, patiently waiting for you to take everything in. And just when you thought nothing more could be as unbelievable as the thing standing in front of you, in your life, your eyes settled on a face smiling at you.  
“Bless the Gods of spies! You’re the black widow!”  
Natasha let out a genuine laugh as she came forward to let you take in the overwhelming reality.

Greetings were exchanged, you were allowed to fangirl (hard) over the heroes you’d only seen over the news but had undivided faith in. They discussed some recent neo-nazi they took down while saving the life of the president of a country you’d never heard of. You were offered a cold beer, coffee and soda, all the while thinking it should’ve been you on the other side, offering them something, especially for all the trouble you must have put them through, which brought forward the question.   
“Thank you for saving me, really. No offence to any of you,” your voice wavered as everything went quiet, “but why am I here?”  
A loud thump made you turn towards the entrance of the Quinjet, a figure throwing down a couple of bags that somehow looked similar to the ones who had at your current place, still lying the same way like you’d put them when you first moved in here. But they were not the ones that made you push all the air out of your lungs as the morbid ache came back out from the box that was supposed to be locked, slithering all over you.  
“Because self-preservation is clearly not your strong suit.”  
The greens eyes came forward into the Quinjet’s sharp lights, the brown curls that you’d only ever seen up in a bun, were now loose, free in every direction so effortlessly.  
Kalisha really was beautiful.  
But all you could think of was the last conversation that had taken place between the two of you, the ache simmering and burning into the anger that had never found an outlet.  
Wanda sensed it all too.  
“Why don’t you freshen up and then we can talk about everything that’s on your mind?” She whispered closed to you, lightly taking your wrist in her hand as she tried to find a memory that could calm you down and projected it into your mind before guiding you out of the jet and into the open field on the outskirts of the city- the only place to freshen up being the lone motel that stood at foot of the gently sloped hill.

A light knock on your door brought you out of all the bad thoughts brewing inside your head. “May I come in?”  
You nodded, allowing Steve to enter. He was now clad in a black jacket and brown pants now.  
 _So I was a mission._  
You did not move from where you sat at the edge of the bed, placing the towel over your lap to soak up any stray droplets of water falling from your recently washed hair.  
Steve saw the redness around your eyes, taking light steps towards you before he settled down at the opposite edge.  
“I’m sorry. All of this must be a little overwhelming.”  
You couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve had worse.” Your voice croaked.  
“So I’ve been told,” Steve responded with a whisper.  
Must have been Kalisha.   
“But I still don’t get why you, of all people, are out here. I’m barely making a living here and I have no history with any… neo-nazis or presidents.”   
You played with the threads of the towel, not wanting to look at those blue eyes again for some reason.  
“No, you don’t,” Steve confirmed, somewhat happy at that fact, “but,” he added as he took something out from his jacket, “you do have a brief history with my friend.”  
You saw the familiar journal come out of his possession. Your eyes went wide, searching the corner and finding the initials just where they’d always been.  
“That’s…that’s Bucky’s,” your mind stopped thinking, sliding you closer to Steve to confirm that you weren’t dreaming, as the dark corner of your brain was lit and the box was rammed open before a worrying thought passed through you.  
“Oh G-Is he alright?”  
“He’s fine. He is safe.”   
“He is? Please don’t lie to me if he isn’t.”  
“He is, Y/N, I promise you.”  
Steve nodded, touched at the concern in your sleep-deprived eyes that dilated at Bucky’s name. All unease that people around him had about you were now washed away in his mind.  
He saw you take the journal with such caution in your hands, feeling the weight of the pages over your palms as you rubbed your finger over Bucky’s engraved initials.  
“Wait. So, Bucky’s you fr- oh! That makes so much sense now.” You told yourself out loud as you remembered his smile on seeing himself in your Captain America tee that day. The call and Sam calling him your boyfriend tonight.  
“What does?”  
Silence.  
“…Nothing.” You blushed. Steve’s brows constricted a bit. “I uhh…we’d read his file, his history in the US army. I…I should’ve known.” You announced the last bit to yourself, going back into a gloomy daze.   
Could all of this have been avoided if you’d paid more attention and thought of contacting Steve?  
Steve could sense your uneasiness as your nails grazed over the coarse corners of the hardback.  
“Open it.”  
“Hmm?”  
“Open the journal.”  
You looked up at Steve, whose eyes glimmered in the bedside lamp’s light.  
“Oh, um…I’ve already read all of it.” You tried to hide the embarrassment of going through Bucky’s personal notes from your reopened memories.  
“No, you haven’t.” Steve smiled.  
The confusion on your face was a welcoming delight for the man as he saw you open the journal and sift through pages for things that she hadn’t read before.  
It took you a few moments before you reached the last page. Steve’s gaze watched you intently, a smile sitting at the edge of his lips, as he felt your eyes scan the words his friend had so boldly written down.  
There was a tiny gasp at first and then a chuckle before he saw your fingers press hard against your lips.  
“This,” he proceeded to say, “doesn’t seem like much but-,” only to stop as he heard your first sniffle.  
“That idiot was supposed to be protecting himself,” you cried out through your limp-filled throat.  
A chuckle escaped through Steve as he nodded, wrapping his arms around you to ease the knots coming undone one by one, letting you get everything out of the box in one huge swell.

 

“What?” Sam announced your entrance for the rest of the people inside the jet getting ready to take off, “You’re still thinking of coming with us?”  
“Yeah. Just like you said, I have issues.” You shrugged, making the Falcon smirk.  
You finally looked at Kalisha, making the Wakandan shift where she stood.  
“Y/N, there is something you need to-”  
Your hug cut her short.  
“Steve told me everything,” you whispered as you hugged her tighter.  
Wanda smiled as she saw everything that went down back at the motel, replaying inside your head, blinking the tears away and looking at Steve with radiating warmth.

 

“But why do I need this now?”  
Bucky looked at Shuri with genuine confusion in his eyes.  
Okoye cleared her throat as she looked at the Sargeant with stern evaluation.  
“Why do I need this new arm, princess?”  
He relaxed once Okoye approved, turning back to Shuri.  
“This is a prototype I’m working on, Sargeant. Wouldn’t you like to have a whole set of working arms?”  
Bucky could not place the sparkle in Shuri and Okoye’s eyes. “I think I will be fine without the metal, princess. It’ll only weigh me down now.”  
“Nonsense,” Shuri brushed his words aside as she brought the black and purple vibranium metal arm forward, “this is lighter and much more durable than what you had been carrying around all these years. Come on, now. Try it.”  
“But-”  
“This is purely for research purposes, Sargeant,” Shuri retorted, looking at him with the most innocent eyes, “and I could really use some enthusiasm here.”  
Okoye’s head turned away as she coughed lightly before turning around. Something about this didn’t make sense to Bucky. But then again, he’d been taken out of cryo-sleep just three hours ago and this really wasn’t worse than the first two minutes and thirty-two seconds of him fearing that the trigger words Shuri spoke would change him again into a death machine. But that never happened, leading to a gushing confusion and relief as he asked the princess to go again, finally free from years of shackles of a few words that had held his sanity in the hands of others.  
The metal really was light; lighter than his flesh arm. It moved with much more ease, far less effort and had decent strength and grasp, something he could safely define as normal.  
“This is far better than what I was forced to use, princess, but I still th-”  
“Just take it out for a day, would you, Sargeant? You won’t regret it, I am sure about that. Isn’t that right, Okoye?”  
Okoye glared at Shuri for a second-who was smiling ear to ear- before turning to Bucky. “Yes, you won’t.”  
Doing some final recalibrations, Shuri finally gave Bucky an okay to go out of the lab for the very first time.  
“I will help you with the rest later. Rest easy for tonight Sergeant,” Shuri said as she gathered the digital files together and put them in an encrypted folder titled ‘J.B.B. (OG)’, “or not” she added under her breath.  
Okoye elbowed her, a tiny smirk leaving her lips. “I’ll take you to your new premises now, Sergeant Barnes. Follow me.”  
Okoye escorted Bucky to the city’s outskirts where the herders and farmers lived as a community along with their animals. The sun was near the horizon slowly setting behind the mountains, blessing Bucky with the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. They stopped at the makeshift fences, where one of the royal escorts presented him with a bag containing his belongings and a few supplies. Bucky took them mechanically.  
“Just like you requested, Sergeant Barnes. This is a small community providing for us, living as far away from any noise. I hope you find some peace here.”  
Bucky nodded and turned around, looking at the huts in the distance. “Which one’s mine?”  
“You’ll know,” was all Okoye bothered to say.  
Bucky asked no more, making his way down the stony path that led to the huts. Okoye looked at his figure for a few moments more, thinking about what change waited for him for the rest of his days, before signalling the escorts to return.  
Bucky stopped in his tracks for a moment as he saw children scurrying around the mud huts, cackling loudly as they played while a few elderly people sat outside on bedsteads covered in ropes intricately. A woman sat by the lake nearby, teaching the kids from a book in her hand while the little ones looked at the words curiously before gazing at her expressions to learn and understand the words she spoke out loud. A herder was coming back with his goats from the grazing field on the mountain nearby, putting them all back into the fenced plot near his hut as his dog helped him with it. Bucky started walking towards the huts again, careful not to catch the eyes of the people, who seemed more than happy to have a visitor here.  
“This one is a white wolf,” the woman showed the kids a picture in the book in front of her, “they approach humans very cautiously, curiously and closely.”  
The kids looked up from the book but instead of the narrator, they turned their gaze towards the man approaching them, who was looking at the kids and the woman they were huddled around. The latter was the only one clad in blue from her shoulders to her ankles, her hair braided neatly into a bun and decorated by wildflowers that were growing nearby.  
“Very little is known about them because they are used to living in the cold.”  
“ _Usisi_?”  
“Yes, Thabo?”  
“By definition, is that man a white wolf too?”  
Bucky turned towards the kids to see if it was him they were calling and saw the woman turn in his direction from where she was sitting.  
The woman was you.  
Bucky’s steps stopped again, the bag slipping from his hold, his eyes dilating, trying to take in every feature all at once as you stood up.  
He thought he was seeing another sunset as you called out his name. Your face catching the delicate orange hues of the sun with such flawlessness. The image of you engraved in his mind from your time together did no justice to the perfection that glowed in front of him with a growing smile. _How could I have been blind?_ was all he thought as he took in the illuminated eyes, the soft lips stretching and catching a single tear, your cheeks- the flawless cheeks no longer carrying any bruises, purely reflecting the pink tones of the sun bidding its final farewell.  
“Y/N.”  
He breathed, at last, his arms coming forward to wrap around you, relieved at your touch. He closed his eyes to breathe your presence. All the memories before and after you became distant, the familiar tide of a lost calm filling him up to the brim. _  
I have found my peace._


	11. Chapter 11

“So, is he your boyfriend?”

The question had been a repetitive invite to embarrassment ever since you arrived in Wakanda, which was a day ago.

“Uhh…” Your broken voice along with the betraying reflex of your fingers tucking your hair behind your ear gave you away every time.

“Relax! I’m just messing with you. You’re Kalisha’s friend and we’re good with just that.”

You looked at Shuri, who’s enthusiasm ignited her lab with such positive vigour and light, that you couldn’t help but mirror her smile.

“Thank you for accommodating me here, in your country. Kalisha told me about the ground rules and keeping the identity of Wakanda a secret and I promise I wo-”

“Promises? In this economy?” Shuri interrupted you, catching a look of surprise on your features before forcing a giggle out of the two of you. “Take it easy, my girl. You’re really helping us by staying. Here,” she pushed forward a tablet that had a questionnaire opened up, “fill them up so that we can find the best area for your skills.”

You scrolled through the questions, impressed at their variance based not only on your past work experiences but also on life situations, work conditions, mental health issues and the overall environment.

_Wakandans are way ahead of the rest of the world in more than just one way._

You filled up the entire thing within an hour, surprised at the fact that unlike the anxious times of making your resume over and over, this went quite smoothly, not making your brain overwork for no reason.

“Done.” You placed the tab and turned it towards Shuri, who had been busy with a prototype of Bucky’s vibranium arm. The black and thin back-lit purple striped metal rested over a support nerve rod connected to the systems sending her the readings from all the parts.

According to Shuri, her team of scientists had been able to map Bucky’s targeted memory that brought forward the winter soldier persona whenever he heard the trigger words and they had been successful in wiping off the first partial imprints even as he was being kept in cryo-sleep and would be done with the rest in two more weeks.

Submitting your resume over to what you believed was the HR, she showed you around the lab.

“Would you like to see him?”

She caught you off guard despite your knowledge that he was here somewhere. Your right hand went over to your other arm, pressing down hard over the muscles while your mind focused on steadying your breathing.

“Am I allowed to?”

All Shuri did was give you a sly grin as she tilted her head in the direction she started moving. Behind a section cut off from the rest of the lab, stood a glass capsule resting at an angle, covered with what appeared to be a blanket adorning Swaziland art.

“Did you…?” You tried to suppress your laugh as best as you could at the irony that stood in front of you.

“I had to hide him. Long story. But I am ninety-seven per cent sure he would have been ignored anyway.”

You tilted your head in acknowledgement, not bothering to ask the reason behind the setting as she removed the blanket from the glass.

It was the raven hair that first came in sight through the frost covering the glass. Then his eyelids and lips. The stillness surrounding the man you’d experienced a thousand emotions with, in seventy-two hours, scraped at your skin, raising all the tiny hairs over your body. Kline’s sordid words echoed through your skull as you looked at the dead expression of Bucky sleeping upon the time surrounding him. Just when the waterworks started coming for the brim, you looked away, making Shuri cover him back before resting her hand on your shoulder. “He’ll be fine. I promise.”

“Promise? In this economy?” You threw a suspicious glance at her, laughing as she nudged your shoulder.

“But, you have my word. If I don’t fix him up, I promise you T'Challa will give up on pursuing Nakia,” she responded with dead seriousness.

Just at that moment, somewhere in the capital, T'Challa nearly sneezed the life out of himself, wondering what his sister was up to this time.

It was a surprise when Nakia informed you how impressive your resume had been as you had only taken up menial jobs after college and never really cared much about earning more than what kept you content. Turns out it was your voluntary activities with unprivileged kids and knowledge of certain languages and geography of the places you’d visited that attracted the woman. She wanted you to help the younger lot with the languages and geographies you were fluent with along with interning at Shuri’s lab to further your experience in the advanced technology, given your Computers and Biology majors in college. You were sceptical of the choices she gave you to try out before moving to other options but all it took was one trial in a classroom full of curious faces- both eager to know and patient enough to listen to you- and a day at the lab- where the scientists and lab techs had been really patient in helping you adjust with their technology, something you knew had Shuri written all over it- for you to settle for them by the end of the day.

You had also nearly surprised Okoye with your tears of happiness when she confirmed that there was a place on the outskirts, away from all the chipper bustle of the capital, where you could settle down, but it was within a community of farmers and herders who had decent lodgings and the open skies with vast scenery in the name of luxury.

“Good thing that I come from a line of goat herders and wheat harvesters.”

A week passed with the length of a year. Your eyes would wake up to the calls of early birds and the rising sun, breathing in the dew of early morning grass under your bare feet, tingling you all over, forcing you to get ready for your day. The first four hours would go by in the flash of an eye as you would fill up the young minds with places they had not visited and the things they had not seen. The next two would go by learning something new every day at the lab before Shuri would force you to learn some hand to hand combat from the Dora Milage along with her ‘just in case’. You knew it had to do with the recent insurgency that happened in the country but you were more than willing to learn if it meant keeping her company while learning to defend yourself, though living here you felt you didn’t it much. But Okoye, who knew the reasons for your hidden scars, never neglected your learning and made sure you were ready to take down at least one warrior by the end of the week.

Your nights would pass on your hard bed under the blanket of stars too beautiful to get used to as you tried to look back at the blur that was your life before this but couldn’t find anything to hold on to- except, maybe, Gina and Michael. You would fall asleep under the glow, to the sound of curious but harmless nocturnal animals as you would feel yourself drifting into a world with nothing but pleasant silence.

Today was your day off. No classes, no internship; not even training. You had busied yourself in tidying up your decent house and helped your neighbours in preparing lunch for the people busy in the field harvesting the season’s first crop, who in turn surprised you by braiding your hair- which had recently grown long because you hadn’t  paid much attention to it for the last two months- while the kids had gathered blue and purple wildflowers and decorated the loose bun with them, making you gleam with newfound joy.

Thabo, the youngest of the kids, wanted to learn about the animals you’d talked about in class yesterday and you were happy to reciprocate their artwork in your hair with some knowledge about the Arctic Fox and the White Wolf from your books.

It had been one instant that seemed to have extended into a sweet elastic stretch of caramelised frames. You’d been talking about the latter when Thabo pointed out to someone standing behind you, making you turn towards a stranger coming in your direction, standing still himself as his distant blue eyes met yours. The book fell from your lap- rescued by Thabo’s brother- as you stood up and turned towards the pale figure of Bucky clad in the familiar old shirt and trousers.

“Bucky?” You called out in a whisper as your heart tried to take in his presence but your eyes already gave up.

You saw the bag in his hand drop, his eyes taking in your existence as you walked towards him.

You could feel his breathing fracture lightly when he called out your name- making your whole being glow like the stars you slept under at night- before taking you in his warm embrace.

It was back. His familiar warmth, radiating more than it ever did before. His scent. Bucky’s delicious scent still drowning you in his sweet wondrous latency. His warm flesh and cold metal stirring the oceans under your skin on your back as his grip ensured you he was never letting you go again. Ever.

You forgot every other company around you. The children, who were low-key hooting at the intimate sight between their teacher and this foreign man- and adults- dragging them away by their ear to give you the much-needed privacy- disappeared.

Drawing yourself away from his decelerating breathing, you gulped in every shade of his skin and every corner of his ocean eyes, smiling while you moved his hair away from his face.

“Hey,” you smiled at him, trying to find words in your breathless state.

“Hey,” he came back with a wide smile, placing his hands around your face, grazing your jaw and cheeks with his thumb as his own turned red.

“You are more beautiful than I remember,” his breathless voice spoke, making you giggle through your tears.

“Not as breathtakingly beautiful as you,” you responded, taking the back of his neck in your wanting grasp, your limbs pulsating at his touch. He brought his forehead down to touch yours, allowing your breaths to mingle.

You stood there, just like that, never wanting to move. Your fingers laced into his hair as your other hand came down his jaw, your index resting at the corner of his red lips.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” you finally broke, your voice barely reaching over a whisper. “I had no idea wha-”

“I know,” his hold around your face bringing you closer to his, the tears in his eyes breaking as he closed that with a whimper, “I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t drag you into the mess. I didn’t trust anyone. I didn’t trust myself. I’m sorry, Y/N.”

You shook your head as your fingers came over his lips. “Shhh. It’s not your fault, Bucky. Stop.”

Bucky’s tears made your body shiver, wanting to hold him close and tell him he was never the problem. “But your home, Y/N. It’s because of me that you w-”

“No,” your adamant eyes looked at him, making him still, “it is no home of mine if my judgement and decisions cannot be respected under the roof; if I cannot care for the person I want to.”

A silent breeze passed through you, bringing the smell of the intoxicating wildflowers with it. “My home is where I can have peace, Bucky.” You could tell he was holding his breath. Trying to stop the last of his restraints.

“And amongst all the turmoil in life, I found it with you.”

The night took its first stretch outside; the brilliant stars already visible all over the sky. Inside your home, lips met to ignite a solemn fire. Hands rediscovered the skin over the shoulders, on the chest, over the back, burning every surface it passed over, arching into the compulsory touch. Limbs crossed over one another, aching at the pulsating desire between them while heavy breaths tingled the neediness in the throats. The tongues tasted the thirst over each other in an intricate dance as the arms drew each other’s naked bodies closer. The marks and bites burned and the wet kisses soothed them. Bucky turned you over your stomach to find your back, leaving no scar unkissed, no mark untouched, replacing all the ache with the frames of his lingering collision inside your mind. His legs parted yours while his hand found your waist. Your hands grabbed the sheet under you as you felt him filling you up, forcing you to arch back to have him plant soft kisses right on your shoulders as his flesh hand cleared your hair away for him to find all your sensitive areas on the neck, while his metal supported his weight above you. The slow rhythm found a pace of its own, as your animalistic desires surfaced. The high built up with the pace so did the fervent kisses and gasps. You could feel your walls clench around him and his hand travelled down your waist to find your aching nerves, bringing the arousing high to its much-needed release. Your body trembled through your first of many pleasures as he found his own release.

“This must be heaven.”

You looked up at Bucky with bliss, who was watching the stars, his flesh arm supporting your head. Both of you lay under the dazzling sky over the bed in the open air, limbs entangled under the sheets, taking in this calm night. “It is, isn’t it?”

He lifted his head to look at you, smiling at the dazzle in your eyes.

“It is,” he announced, never leaving your gaze as he kissed you. His thumb grazing the skin over your arm, taking in as much of your skin into his memory at a time.

“She didn’t tell me.”

“Hmm?”

“Shuri didn’t tell me you were coming home today.”

Bucky’s smile disappeared for a second before a cackle burst out of his lungs. “So that’s what they meant!”

He told how Shuri never told him about you either and had been pushing him to take the prototype with him 'for research purposes’.

You could feel the embarrassment surging through your body as you shifted under the covers to hide your face in his chest, making him chuckle.

You played with the rebellious threads of his red clothing that Okoye had provided him with when he came over as a thought played inside your mind. Finally, you gave in.

“Do you want to keep it?”

It was Bucky’s turn to shift. “No.”

“It must remind you of the things in your past, right?”

Bucky nodded. “Yes. Yes, it does.”

“Then don’t keep it.” You half got up to face him. He looked at you with a blank expression for a second.

“You want to start new. If you feel this is the first step, then do it. No one’s going to force you. No one can. It’s a free country.”

You rested your chin over his chest, feeling his fingers make circles and hearts over your back making you smile as Bucky had no idea currently what he was doing.

“What’s stopping you?”

He sighed, never stopping the hearts.

“I’m whole even without this, right?”

You looked at him with your concerned eyes. “Bucky, you are definitely whole without this piece of metal.”

You got up and shifted your legs over his waist while directing your upper body to his conjunction. “Here,” you said as you found the control and swiped a few digits before Bucky heard a snap and the arm safely detached himself from Bucky’s shoulder. You got up and tucked it away in Bucky’s bag before coming back to his warmth.

“You are more than that metal, James Buchanan Barnes,” you announced in his ear before kissing his lips.

His smile came back and he held your face in his flesh warmth as he came back for a lingering kiss.

“What did I do to have you here beside me?”

“Oh, you didn’t do much,” you pointed out, “It was Steve and his rebellious bunch who did all the work.”

Bucky groaned, making you laugh. “He’s at it again, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, he told me all the stories, mister. And he approves of me if you wanted to know. I mean, as you can see, thanks to him, I’m here.”

Bucky’s ocean orbs reflected the stars in them as he got lost in yours. A pleasant pain filled him up as he kissed your forehead and pressed you closer to himself.

“Yes. You’re here.”

And with that one satisfied thought, both of you found the once disappeared sleep again in each other’s arms under the best blanket the universe had put on display.


	12. Chapter 12

“Hey.”  
“Hmm.”  
“Come on, now, wake up.”  
“No.”  
A light chuckle filled the air around your ears.  
“Don’t you have work to do today?”  
Bucky’s whispers tingled the tiny hairs on your ear, making you draw down closer to his chest while you felt the warmth of his arm move your hair away from your face as he teasingly pinched your cheeks.  
“Bucky! Stop!” Your groggy voice brought out light giggles from inside him, clearly not helping you go back to your delicious slumber. You finally opened your eyes to see a wide grin slathered in between his beard as he kissed your forehead. “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

You looked at him with as much rage as your drowsy eyes and melting heart could gather. “It’s not a good morning.”  
“Mm-hmm?” he questioned playfully as he kissed your nose. “Why is that?”  
“Because it’s my day off! I have the right to get an off at least once from early mornings.”  
His lips came for your cheek, leaving a peck before his teeth took the chubbiness in them. “Not from your training, you don’t.” He said almost mechanically as he nibbled at your ear.  
“No, I don’t,” you groaned as he got up and pulled you in a sitting position with him, “Not once in the last two years at least.”  
“Okoye did let you rest when you were down with cold,” Bucky stated matter-of-factly, his hand trying to straighten the mess that was your bed hair. You dunked your head in the depth of his shoulder, as your body felt the unwelcoming memory of nausea from that time returning. “Oh, that was worse than the training.”  
“I don’t feel like training today,” you muttered with a pretentious whimper, “let me take Glinda and her tribe into the mountains in your place.”  
There was a moment of silence.  
“As much as I’d love to, doll, I would not last a minute under Okoye’s stare of death.”  
You groaned again.  
  
“Stop making my training grounds a mess,” Okoye growled.  
“I wasn’t kidding Okoye,” you winced, “those berries messed up my system again.” You lay with your stomach the floor, sweating profusely, trying to breathe through nausea. “Just give me half an hour and some fenugreek. I’ll be fine. My gut’s stronger than this.”  
Okoye clicked her tongue as she left her staff and came over to offer you her hand. “Then stop eating those berries!”  
You sat up with all your might and looked at her with a ‘really?’ glance as you took her hand. “So what if it hurts his feelings! At least your body will be spared of the pain.”  
You mocked a sob before Okoye grabbed your arm with a decent force and made you step closer to her so you could look her straight in the eyes. “Do you think he would happy to know his hand-plucked berries have been causing you to retch your innards?”  
Bucky was right, you thought, he wouldn’t have lasted a second in here. You shook your head.  
“Then tell him today to stop bringing things only his super-soldier stomach can handle.”  
“Yes, general.” You understood.  
She signalled one of the guards, who disappeared from the view and came back with a medical kit.  
“Okoye, I’m fine!”  
“No, you’re not,” she gave you a look of concerned surprise, “and your gut is really not as strong as you think.”  
“You know I hate pills,” you announced as she ordered the guard to give you one for your stomach and ordered him to take a blood sample to find out what exactly it was that you were allergic to.  
“Training, probably,” you muttered under your breath, bringing down a shower of the volcanic glare of Okoye’s wrath as it shut down every nerve in your body.  
“She might not even die from her rotting intestines as painfully as she will die under your merciless glare Okoye.”  
Shuri. Thank you.  
She came over, her arms wanting to catch you in a hug but you moved back a little. “I smell awful.”  
“So, does everyone. That’s how body odour works. Get over it,” she scolded you before hugging you tightly.  
The two of you were knee deep into a trending meme conversation when Okoye was summoned by the king. Without as much as a farewell to you or Shuri, she went away, creating an unsettling tingle where that now subsiding nausea was supposed to be.  
“What’s going on?” You turned towards Shuri as you both left the grounds.  
“What’s going on?” she asked you back, clearly oblivious herself till you two entered her lab and saw a beeping hologram waiting for her to be opened.  
___________  
“The kingsguard and the Dora Milage have been alerted.” Okoye, back in her combat uniform, affirmed T'Challa, as they walked over the green hill towards a lone figure at work with the hay, surrounded by goats and a few curious kids.  
“And the border tribe?”  
“Those that are left,” she responded without a pause, blinking to the scene straight ahead.  
“Send the word to the Jabari as well.” T'Challa’s words made her turn towards her king. “M'Baku likes a good fight.”  
She exhaled. Of course, he does.  
She affirmed.  
“And what of this one?” She pointed at the figure of the man they approached.  
“This one may be tired of war,” T'Challa declared between the two, “but the White Wolf has rested long enough.”  
  
Bucky saw them come to a stop near him as the guards brought forward a box on their king’s signal. The second it opened, emotions washed over him layer after layer. The metal arm brought as a present by T'Challa himself was a curious surprise. Though Bucky resented the thought of having to wear metal again, it meant there was a threat great enough for the most important man in Wakanda to personally come and ask him to suit up; it meant there was a threat great enough to ask for help from the hundred-year-old semi-stable soldier. His eyes never left the black and gold created to perfection by the technology of the country that never ceased to surprise him, coming in terms with the untimely reality.  
Okoye observed him this entire time, reading all of his concerns.  
“Where’s the fight?” was all he asked.  
“On its way,” T'Challa responded, making the General finally grasp to the thread of reality as a tied up breath left her lungs.  
____________  
You power-walked your way- nearly breaking into a sprint every time no one was in sight- towards the royal quarters for the guests. The room had a guard standing by, who confirmed for you that Bucky was here. You entered to find a combat suit all ready for the soldier to wear to the war that was approaching home in a while. How long was that while? You had no idea. The vest, holsters, knives, guns and boots laid down beside a fresh pair of pants and a shirt customised for his arm made the news more real for you. Another pair of vest, holsters, combat boots and clothing lay beside his pair. Yours. You had no idea when Shuri had prepared an entire battle armour for you. Clearly, there were still things that this genius left as for last minute surprises.  
The sound of running water from the door brought you back. You twisted the knob open to walk in on to Bucky’s back. His figure stood defeated under the water stream, the only thing keeping him steady were his hands on the wall in front of him. His dark hair was denser, sticking to his neck and shoulders that tried their best to keep their breathing stable.  
The unsettling feeling that you had today turned into an ache in your chest. You locked the door behind you, got out of your workout clothes and stepped into the shower behind him. Your fingers felt his arms before your palms ran up and down their length. “Hey,” you called out as softly as you could.  
Even now, after two years, your warmth had the power to liquidate Bucky’s overpowered nerves, your voice had the influence of shattering through his deep-seated anxiousness, always bringing him back to the now. He could feel the familiar calm come back, travelling through your touch all over his body, easing his tensed muscles. Oh, how he’d missed this.  
Bucky turned towards you, the blue of his eyes an ocean experiencing a storm, the high tides foaming white everywhere. For a moment you felt your heart being forced out of your rib cage but asked it to be steady for just a little longer. Your hands found his face, caressing his beard and temple, trying your best to give him an encouraging smile.  
Bucky’s head bent down, resting itself in the valley of your shoulders while his arms came around you, holding on to you with his everything. The new metal over your bare skin sent a flux through you, making you draw into rest of Bucky’s warmth further. You stood there, running your hands gently over his back as the rivulets of water came over from his skin on to yours, washing you bit by bit for the next few moments of silence.  
“It’s never going to be over.” Bucky finally spoke.  
You kissed his shoulder. “Things like these have a tendency to follow people, Bucky. We’ve always known this. I know you have. I’ve seen the weapons back home that you hid when you thought I wasn’t looking.”  
Bucky didn’t move. He only breathed you in.  
“Do you want to do it?” Bucky’s fingers did the hearts on your back, making you smile at this simple ritual between the two of you.  
“Yes, I do. I have to do it. They need me. Steve needs me. It’s the end of the world for all we know.”  
“Then I reckon we should fight like it.” You announced, bringing his head back up almost making him look at you with questioning eyes.  
“How are you so calm right now?”  
You looked back into his oceans where the tides had subsided a little. “I’m not. It’s terrifying knowing what’s coming. But, I don’t know if you remember that I have really not been surprised by stuff since a very tall, ripped gentleman broke and almost killed a bunch of experienced goons with his bare hands to save me. It’s been hard to be surprised by the idea of death after that, really.”  
You tried to suppress your smile as his eyes lit up and his own lips stretched at the memory.  
“I’m so glad I ran into you when I did.” His thumb pushed the wet strands away from your face so take your glowing features in.  
“Oh, you mean you’re glad I am as clumsy as I am. Because if it hadn’t been for my carelessness we wou-”  
“I love you, Y/N.”  
You felt your breath get caught somewhere inside you, the ache in your chest being melted and replaced by a new wave of brimming bliss.   
“I love you too, Bucky.”  
“I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”  
He saw the gentle expression in your eyes turn into a mildly confused rage. “Wait, that wasn’t the plan this entire time? Seriously, Barnes!”  
“No, silly,” he laughed, “I mean I want to marry you.”  
The blood inside your brains rushed up throughout your body with such radiant heat, you were sure your body was burning the water into steam over your skin right. “Are you sure?” you finally found your voice in the daze. “You’ll have to bear me for the rest of your life.”  
His lips came for your forehead, his hands never leaving your face. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. And shouldn’t I be the one asking this question?”  
“Why? You are the softest wolf I have ever come across. Someone would have to be crazy not to love you. I’d marry you right this second.”  
You kissed his red cheeks, making him blush even more furiously.  
“But I still feel like we’d need Steve’s blessings.”  
Bucky chuckled. “Let’s just wait till we tell him that. I’d rather he focus on beating some alien ass, which worries me if I’m being honest.”  
It was your turn to laugh. “It’s Steve Rogers we are talking about.”  
“He’s not alone. Neither are you. You have each other, like old times. You have Natasha and Sam. You have T'Challa and Okoye. You have Shuri and her brilliant mind!”  
“I have you,” he concluded your list for you, bringing you closer to him.  
“You have me.”  
His lips came down to melt into yours. The bliss in your chest spilt over the edges as you wrapped your hands around his neck. His metal came down to lift you up. “Jesus, you’ve gained weight.”  
“That’s all the hard muscles your future wife has built till now, honey.” He laughed into your mouth. “Shut up and kiss me, Barnes.” He obeyed.  
His lips drank you in with such urgent passion for as long as they could before breaking away. You could feel the vibrant stings his fear left in his kiss over your lips. His eyes closed- not before he had seen you smile- and he let his other senses consume your presence. You kissed his forehead before touching it with yours, praying to whatever force that always heard you, to protect him; to protect his soul.  
“I’m here, Bucky.” You whispered with assurance.  
“You are here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this just went where you think it just went.


	13. Chapter 13

“How you been Buck?”  
“Not bad for the end of the world.”  
Steve took him for his word. Clearly seeing the light in his eyes brighter than the day they’d first arrived in Wakanda; clearer than the daze he’d seen in his best friend’s being when he had met him for the first and the last time here. Steve could see that something had changed about Bucky. There was his old friend from Brooklyn with a hint of something new. Steve couldn’t really place a finger on it till he saw a familiar face walk towards him from behind Bucky.  
“Hey there, Captain.” You greeted the man who had gone full nomad with his beard and suit.

“Y/N,” Steve smiled up to his eyes as he hugged you tightly, “So good to see you.”  
“You too, Steve,” you responded, your screaming nerves already feeling a little better, engulfed in his towering stature.  
_Steve’s here. Almost everyone’s here. We should be good._  
“Come on, now you two. We’re standing here too.” Natasha appeared from behind him.  
“My favourite assassin,” you gushed as you hugged her firmly. “My biggest fangirl.”  
“Hey,” Bucky quipped beside you, “I thought I was your favourite,” his features clearly hurt at your declaration but you knew him too well by now to know what lied behind that humour.  
“Get over it, old man,” Natasha teased him.  
“I’m surprised you’re still here,” Sam hugged you back, making you chuckle. “This country has good health insurance and pay benefits for teachers and science students. I’m surprised no one’s moved here by now.”  
“Who is she?” you heard a deep voice filled with an unsure whisper from behind the Falcon.  
“Right,” Sam brought his face closer to yours to whisper, “don’t be surprised,” before turning aside and allowing your eyes to go wide at the figure of Bruce Banner and James Rupert Rhodes.  
__________  
“I. Am. The. Worst,” you grumbled.  
“Take it easy, tiger,” Sam chuckled, “Banner has seen worse today. I bet you nearly squealing was actually a welcoming site for him.”  
You scrunched up your nose at Sam while placing your comms in position, standing between him and Bucky, discussing the new threat that was out to get the earth.  
“How’s Wanda doing?”  
Sam looked at you and you knew within a second it was the worst for her and Vision at the moment.  
“I wish I could help them up there in some way.” You were clearly feeling useless right now. Shuri had taken the reigns and you knew for a fact she could help vision all on her own.  
“So,” Sam raised his voice a bit, breaking your worrying thoughts as his eyes continued scanning the perimeter, “what’s up with you two?”  
“Sup?” you asked Sam, not clear what exactly he was looking for.  
“You guys having something serious now or are you still trying to work stuff out.”  
You inhaled the question and turned to Bucky, whose eyes mimicked your movements. The heat in your cheeks was rising by the second.  
“We…” you trailed off trying to calm the tremble in your voice before continuing, “have been living together for some time now.”  
You eyed Bucky for some sort of visual confirmation and he nodded at Sam, who was elated at the news. “Nice. Cool.”  
“Hey, Y/N,” Rhodey called for you as he came back outside in his war machine battle armour, “the General says to remind you of something about the berries?”  
You groaned, your hand reflexively going towards your stomach as the mind revisited distressing nausea from this morning.  
“Berries? Is he talking about those berries?” Of course, Bucky was quick to catch on to it.  
_We are at the verge of an alien invasion. How are we still discussing the berries?_  
You took in one lungful of air. “I got sick this morning because of those berries.”  
Bucky’s entire body turned towards you to comprehend the words he’d just heard. “Again.” You added, making his face feel a tiny jolt.  
“I’m fine now, really,” you added before Bucky could say anything, “I wouldn’t be geared up for battle if Okoye hadn’t given me an all clear.”  
Bucky shifted his weight to give you a sarcastic stare with his brows.  
“You are not going anywhere near the battlefield, doll. Not today,” he announced. “I can only manage one crazy with no sense of self-preservation at a time,” he grumbled not taking his eyes off you.  
“Wow. You two are cute.” Rhodey stood beside you, making you squirm with his presence.  
_The War Machine was friends with your friends who themselves were a bunch of superheroes_.  
_What lifetime am I living? Is this real?_  
_Of course, it’s real. You’ve been living in a utopia for more than a year now…doll. Your boyfriend- who just asked you to marry him- is the softest supersoldier you’ve ever met. This is as real as it gets._  
Your lips involuntarily stretched into a smile. It is real. The breathing eased as you looked up, thanking the forces for this; all of this. All the pain you’d suffered were now bumps on the road that had always led to this.  
The clear blue sky sparkled. A tiny ray reflecting the golden you thought was from the sun.  
It was the smile on your face that disappeared first.  
“Guys,” your voice bearly even a whisper, trying to bring the soldiers’ attention-who were still bickering about the berries- towards the sky.  
“Guys!” Your voice grew louder with urgency, bringing their focus to the direction you were looking in.  
“Cap, we got a situation here,” Sam announced into the comms right the second his eyes caught anomaly.  
A dark solid structure burning up in the earth’s atmosphere was headed straight for the capital.  
Right before its impact with the buildings, it blew up in the sky by the highly reactive forcefield that engulfed the city, sending the destroyed spaceship fracturing into every direction after the explosion.  
“God, I love this place,” Bucky breathed.  
“Yeah, don’t start celebrating yet guys,” Rhodey voiced, “We got more incoming outside the dome,” he declared for everyone to hear as a shower of similar golden specks went by towards the grasslands.  
The ominous alien pyramids landed with considerable impact outside the forcefield’s perimeter one after another, destroying all the flora and fauna within the radius of their brunt, sending their vicinity in flames and dust that stopped at the edges of the protected borders.  
You activated your comms and adjusted the frequency to know what was going on inside the lab.  
“-need to destroy the stone now,” Vision’s voice crackled in your ear, making your nerves light up in the worst ways.  
Natasha was having none of it while T'Challa confirmed they will hold them off.  
“Wanda, as soon as that stone’s out of his head, you blow it to hell.” Steve’s voice echoed through your ears, making you turn towards Sam and Bucky.  
_Wanda was supposed to destroy the stone?_  
“Steve,” you whispered with the weight of the one question building up like an anthill creeping with the worst scenario inside your head.  
“I will,” Wanda’s voice showed no sign of hesitation.  
__________  
“What do you mean I can’t go?”  
“You are going to stay here with Shuri and protect her.”  
It was getting really hard keeping pace with Okoye, especially after her unforeseen decision of keeping you off the battlefield.  
“Does Bucky have something to do with this? Okoye!”  
She hit her staff on the ground, making you stand still opposite her. “Oh, he most definitely has something to do with this but right now we have enough mettle on the battlefield. I need someone to stay by Shuri’s side who isn’t present there just for exploiting my princess’s knowledge. She could really use a friend right now.”  
You felt like a moron for her having to explain the situation to you.  
“Have I made myself clear?”  
“Yes, general.”  
“Good.”  
Following her, you met Bucky outside where everyone was boarding the carriers. “Hey,” Bucky stepped away from Sam, coming towards your direction. “I’m staying with Shuri.”  
“Good.” You hated it but the ease dripping in Bucky’s poise made the sparks of rage bury themselves back in the core behind your eyes.  
You took his face in your tiny hands, making his pupils dilate at the gesture.  
“James Buchanan Barnes,” you announced as you kissed him before the hidden ambers inside you ignited the sparks in his, “Give them hell.”  
A smirk washed over his heated lips. “I’ll tell them you send your regards.”  
__________  
The glass walls showed the carriers sending away platoons of warriors to the plane grasslands, near the edge of the border where the enemy waited. Dr Banner was suited up in the hulk buster because his green friend did not feel like it today and it was evident, from where you stood, that the scientist was having a hard time adjusting to it. The Jabari had already arrived on the plains, their cries being heard twice- through the comms as well as the tensed air surrounding you- while the rest of the forces filed themselves up.  
“Tell me if you need any help, okay?” you uttered to Shuri, who was gearing up the controls, calibrating them to function carefully and precisely around Vision’s neuron threads. Shuri simply nodded; all her focus on the task at hand.  
“Can I get you two anything before she starts?” You asked, turning towards Wanda and Vision.  
“No, we’re good. Thanks.” Wanda didn’t even make eye contact, which you probably thought was the best thing right now. But just as you walked away from the window, passing her, you heard her whisper, “And congratulations,” into your ear, smiling through her bloodshot eyes.  
It took you a moment before you remembered what her powers were. _She already knew about the proposal? Of course, she did! She can read freaking minds when she’s not controlling them, remember?_  
“Oh! Thanks. We haven’t told anyone yet,” you kept your voice as low as possible, out of earshot from Shuri. Wanda’s brows constricted a bit.  
“But wouldn’t they already know, considering the reason that you’re here ri-”  
War cries resonated through your earpiece, making you turn back towards the scene unfolding outside. “It’s beginning.”  
Bucky’s voice cursed at the army unleashed outside the perimeter. They were all muddy dots from where you stood but their numbers were incredible. The perimeter lit up right where those dots tried to infiltrate through but were evidently having a hard time. Shots were being fired at the ones who somehow made it inside from both the ground as well as air. A few from the cluster of muddy dots were moving right at the edge of the perimeter but instead of breaching it they were running around it.  
“Cap, if these things circle the perimeter and get in behind us, there is nothing between them and vision.”  
Apparently, the world-renowned scientist was smart when it came to a battlefield as well. His words made your grip harden on your staff as you did not take your eyes off the dots getting bigger and closer to you.  
“On my signal,” T'Challa’s voice came, “open North-West Section seventeen.”  
_Containment._  
WIth the final warcry in the name of Wakanda, the battalions charged forward towards the masses of aliens running haywire over the land before the barrier was opened on the king’s word.  
You could see two dark figures from the Wakandan battalions running past the army, charging right into the wild aliens without hesitation.  
“Oh, heavens,” you muttered. It was one thing to hear about Steve and T'Challa’s incredibly thoughtless methods of charging into a fight but it was a whole different experience to watch them do it from your own eyes.  
_So, that’s what you go through, Okoye, Bucky._  
“How much longer, Shuri?” T'Challa’s voice called out through the comms.  
“I’ve barely begun brother,” Shuri stated, her hands and eyes steady on the structural neurons hologram she was recircuiting as the precision lasers did the physical work for her.  
“You might want to pick up the pace.”  
And there it was again.  
The unsettling slither raising the hairs on your skin. You picked up a pair of binoculars and moved closer to the glass. Dr Banner was doing a decent job of taking out the mindless aliens hungry for death and destruction. Rhodey was manning the entrance, thinning out the numbers where they were clustered the most. Steve and T'Challa were beating the hell out of any beast that approached them. Bucky was not missing any shot until an alien punched him, forcing him to lose his handle on the gun. You cursed as you watched the ugly thing tower over him as Bucky’s knife went through the alien’s skin. But that was not the only site that froze your fast pacing heart. Rhodey was shot out of the air, Steve and T'challa were overpowered by the growing number attacking them while the hulk buster was thrown into the sand as the alien claws tried to scratch their way through the metal.  
Your insides screamed at the sight of your friends being dragged through the dust one by one.  
_Stop this madness,_ your inner voice tried to scream. _If you’re listening right now, please, do something._  
For a second it felt like a dream, the burst of light that came down right in the middle of the battle field. Was it another enemy attack? You zoomed in to ground zero to confirm the suspicions eating you right now. But what raised your confusion was the unidentified object that came out of the blinding streak of light, sparkling with electricity as it zoomed about, taking down all the aliens in its way.  
“Oh, God.” you didn’t realise you were blurting out loud right now.  
“What is it? Did something happen?” voices called from behind you. It was either Wanda or Shuri but you were too dazed to even notice the difference.  
“No,” your senses tried to find balance, “no. I meant…there is an actual God on the battlefield. It’s Thor. And…” you felt the daze coming back at the sight of his companions, “a…uhh…tree and a raccon.”  
You moved the binoculars away from your eyes for a moment. “I swear I’m not high. That’s just what they are.”  
  
“Bucky, the raccoon! On your six!” You announced as you saw the little animal throw curses like greetings at the hoard of aliens approaching him. Bucky turned in time to pick the talking animal and out of their while aiming for their heads. You would be lying if said you weren’t internally smiling at the scene unfolding you. “Careful babe, there are laws here against animal cruelty,” you smirked.  
“That thing just asked me the price of my arm. And I don’t think the raccoon will be the one pressing charges,” he grunted.  
“By the way, I think the tree just made a new friend.”  
“Let me guess,” Bucky responded, clearly hearing your controlled but lightly elated whisper, “Steve Rogers.”  
Before you could say more, a heavy rumble vibrated through the lab, making Shuri stop for a moment as Wanda moved towards the glass walls beside you.  
A line of greenery toppled down in a clean row till the perimeter where the ground swell up and gave way to connected weaponised wheels ten times the size of a human. And there wasn’t just one of them.  
You turned towards Wanda, whose eyes faced away from the chaos unfolding in front of you.  
“Wanda,” you whispered, placing your hand on her arm.  
Her eyes locked on to yours and you had no idea how you could see the volume of her pain through them.  
“Take care of him till I come back.” It was more of a request. You tried your best to fight back the urge to accompany her. “I will.”  
The next thing you knew, this woman was taking down the wheels and the alien hounds over the battlefield in numbers unmatched.  
The sounds of crunching bones and shrieks brought you back inside the lab.  
“Shuri!” You heard your voice call out for your friend, whose body flew down the platform as the figure of the assaulter came into display. The pale skin of the alien emanating malice shrouded in black was ready to jump down the platform.  
Before you could get yourself in position a force sent you off into the wall. “I’m sorry Y/N,” you heard Vision’s breathless voice whisper close to you as everything around you started going blurry, “but you are in no position to be fighting right now.”  
_Niether are you, you moron,_ you wanted to say, but the words never came. You could see outlines of Vision moving towards the enemy finding the table empty, grabbing him and taking him out and down through the glass.  
You wanted to get up but your head pounded with immense pain. It had been the one to take all the impact after vision had so treacherously moved you out of harms way. Your mind wanted to check on Shuri and call out for Bucky but nothing was moving and everything was turning into a colourful mess before lights went out.  
__________  
The sharp ringing inside your ear didn’t stop till you opened your eyes. Your mind took in the familiar surroundings of the lab, the table, the chandelier, the equipment, Shuri.  
“Shuri,” your weak voice called out for her as your throbbing limbs tried their best to get up. The caught up breath in your lungs was released once you were sure she was breathing. You picked her up and laid her in the section hidden away from the rest of the lab, covering her with a blanket.  
“I’ll be back,” you assured the princess as your disoriented self walked out of there.  
“Vision? Does anyone have eyes on Vision?”  
Static.  
“Steve? Do you have eyes on Vision?”  
Silence.  
Your heart picked up the speed what your steps weren’t able to do yet. Picking up a staff lying closest to you you made your way to the elevator.  
“Nat? Sam? Can anyone hear me?”  
The silence brought in a tide of fear. Your back felt the cold sweat run down your spine, not wanting your worst thoughts to come true.  
“Bucky?” your voice gave away.  
Silence.  
The cold sweats grew as the nausea came back. Tears ran down your cheeks, nothing stopping the shaking of every cell in your body.  
“Y/N?” Bucky’s voice made a light scream escape your throat. You were already running out of the elevator and through the doors down towards the ground.  
“Bucky! Are you-”  
“My lady,” a wakandan soldier approached you from the open, “you should stay inside. General’s ord-”  
He stopped speaking and turned to look at his hand holding the staff whither away slowly into ashes, taking the rest of him with it, making the staff land with a loud clunk reverberating through your brain.  
“Steve?” Bucky’s voice came again with a hint of unsurity hanging in his tone.  
You dashed towards the treeline where you had seen Vision fall in, trying to press away the nausea and pain building up in your stomach all the while pressing away the dark thoughts.  
“Bucky?”  
Silence.  
Your pace accelarated but dropped as the raccoon and the tree coming into view, the latter disintegrating right in front of your eyes.  
Your eyes wildly went around the forest, catching Steve leaning down into someone’s ashes.  
“Bucky?” a crack called out in your throat as Steve looked up in your direction, not able to gather what just happened.  
“Bucky,” you whispered, making him get up and move away from the spot.  
You shook your head as your body moved towards the remains.  
“Buck.” Your limbs gave way under you, bringing you down to your knees.  
_Hey, come on, now. Wake up._ Bucky’s first words of this morning echoed through you in his soothing voice.  
Okoye’s cries for her king and Rhodey’s call for Sam dropped in the background.  
_Don’t you have work to do today?_  
Natasha came running towards the now lifeless body of Vision being turned by Steve while Bruce, Thor and Rhodey watched from afar.  
_Goodmorning, sleepyhead._  
Rocket sat defeated near Groot’s ashes. So did you, near Bucky’s.  
_As much as I’d love to, doll, I would not last a minute under Okoye’s stare of death._  
Your fingers traced the fragile remains under their skin.  
“What is this? What the hell is happening?” Rhodey called out.  
_It’s never going to be over._  
The place in your chest where you heart supposedly was splintered into a thousand peices, the force driving the wind out of your lungs.  
_They need me. Steve needs me. It’s the end of the world for all we know._  
Steve finally sat down, dejected. “Oh, God.”  
_How are you so calm right now?_  
Your aching body no longer registered the changes occuring inside you into your head.  
_I’m so glad I ran into you when I did._  
Parts inside you were falling to pieces.  
_I love you, Y/N._  
Soft thump of the hulk buster’s feet coming closer behind you.  
_I want to spend the rest of my life with you._  
“Jesus christ,” Bruce’s voice marveled.  
_No, silly. I mean I want to marry you._  
Your breathing slowed down, the ache in your limbs increasing with every passing second, telling your numb mind to stop it.  
“Nat,” Bruce softly called out for her, his eyes never leaving you. “Nat.”  
_I have you._  
The cold sweats made you shiver, the words adding to the lack of warmth inside you.  
Nat came in your direction, not yet over the shock of vision’s lifeless body, looking at Bruce with half the interest. “Nat,” Bruce’s voice broke, his breathing growing heavy, “I think she’s bleeding.”  
_Jesus, you’ve gained weight._  
Your hands rested on your thighs, half open towards the sky, purposeless.  
Nat looked at your armour, confused at the sight of no open wounds until her eyes went down. “No,” she came by your side within seconds, her breathing fast, her heartbeat faster.  
_You are here._  
“I’m here,” your voice barely a whisper.  
Nat picked up your unresponsive limbs, Steve coming behind her to help. “She’s in shock.” Nat shook her head at Steve’s words. “Steve, this is worse.”  
“I’m here,” the inaudible whisper escaped again.  
It didn’t take long for it to dawn on him, all the last breaths leaving his tired lungs. “No.”  
He looked at your lackluster eyes still stuck on the sight of the ashes. “No, God, no.”  
His arms wrapped your shivering body into themselves, his hands stroking your hair.  
“Captain,” Okoye’s trembling voice called from behind him, her tears from losing her king and friend still not dry, “we have to take her inside. Now.”  
“I’m here,” the words mechanically escaping one last time before Steve’s arms carried you away, from where Bucky’s remains rested, all the colours around you mixing into complete darkness.  
_I’m here.  
Where are you? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have nothing to say except for the fact that I would be the first one to go sit down in the theatre to watch Avengers: Endgame just so I can give this fic the ending it deserves.

**Author's Note:**

> There were a lot of emotion involved when I wrote this series. I hope the readers like it.


End file.
